PESHAWAR: Four in every 10 children below five years of age have been found stunted and another two in 10 suffer from wasting in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, according to National Nutrition Survey 2018.

A statement said that findings of the survey conducted last year were made public at a ceremony here on Tuesday.

“In the newly merged districts, formerly known as Federally Administered Tribal Area, three of every 10 children have wasting,” Prof Zulfiqar A. Bhutta, the director of Centre for Excellence in Women and Child Health, Aga Khan University, Karachi, told the participants.

He said that the survey also revealed that over 20 per cent of under-five children were underweight in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He said that during the course of the exercise, the nutrition status of 17,305 households across the province was assessed.

Report says two of every 10 children suffer from wasting

Prof Bhutta a said that under-five children, adolescent girls and women of child bearing age were the primary focus of the data related to nutrition, access to water and its quality, hygiene and sanitation, food security and disability among children.

It shows that in both Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and newly-merged districts, adolescent girls and boys bear burden of malnutrition with over 30 per cent of adolescent girls in the province. More than half of them were anaemic.

Prof Bhutta said that over 10 per cent children between two to five years had one or another form of functional disability in Pakistan.

Health Secretary Dr Syed Farooq Jamil said that access to adequate nutrition was a fundamental human right and a precondition for overall human health, wellbeing and national development.

He said that government was aware of the fact that addressing the problems of malnutrition was of paramount importance.

“We must work together to implement effective interventions to address these issues for the welfare of our people,” he said.

Unicef deputy representative Dr Tajudeen Oyewale said that their actions to tackle the troubling trends of malnutrition would have to be bolder, not only in scale but also in terms of multi-sectoral collaboration, involving health, agriculture, food, education, social protection, water and sanitation and other relevant sectors.

The special secretary of planning and development department said that improved nutrition had significant economic and social benefits as it reduced morbidity and mortality besides improving the quality of life.

Published in Dawn, July 24th, 2019