May 31 2012
"U.N. officials say they expect 18 million people in West Africa will go hungry this year, including three million young children whose lives or health will be at risk," the Associated Press reports. David Gressly, the U.N. regional humanitarian coordinator for nine countries in Africa's Sahel region, told reporters on Tuesday that at least one million children's lives will be threatened by malnutrition in 2012, and malnutrition will cause health problems for another two million children under age five, according to the news agency. Gressly said drought, failed harvests, and political instability were making this the worst hunger crisis to hit the region since 2005, the AP notes (5/29).
This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
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