Malnutrition News and Research

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Malnutrition is a condition which occurs when there is a deficiency of certain vital nutrients in a person’s diet. The deficiency fails to meet the demands of the body leading to effects on the growth, physical health, mood, behaviour and other functions of the body. Malnutrition commonly affects children and the elderly.

Niger facing high child malnutrition rates

While the world focuses on the famine in East Africa, warnings about high child malnutrition rates in Niger appear "to have gone unnoticed by the international media," AlertNet reports.

29 Jul 2011

UNICEF in new African vaccine drive

UNICEF (UN Children's Fund), has launched a massive vaccination campaign across the Horn of Africa to protect 2.5 million children against diseases like measles, which can be deadly for malnourished children. This drive would include a strategy to vaccinate every child in Somalia (under the age of 15) against measles.

27 Jul 2011

Scientists identify possible genetic variations linked to eating disorders

A substantial number of people with eating disorders, such as anorexia nervosa have a chronic course. They are severely underweight and have a high likelihood of dying from malnutrition. No treatment has been found that helps people who are chronically ill. Now, a new study sheds light on the reason that some people have poor outcome.

27 Jul 2011

Nearly 720,000 children are at risk of death across the Horn of Africa

With famine now declared in two regions of Southern Somalia and malnutrition rates at emergency levels in arid and semi-arid regions across the Horn of Africa, nearly 720,000 children are at risk of death without urgent assistance.

25 Jul 2011

U.N. increases humanitarian aid need to $4.9B for 2011

The U.N. on Wednesday said during a donor meeting in Geneva that "it needs $7.9 billion this year, $500 million more than it had originally sought, to fund relief operations in the face of spreading humanitarian crises in Africa and Asia," Reuters reports (7/20).

22 Jul 2011

Somali President issues appeal for famine assistance

Somali President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed on Wednesday "issued an urgent appeal for international aid" for famine assistance in his country during an exclusive interview with CNN at his residence in Mogadishu. "The situation is very severe. The conditions are very harsh," he said (7/21).

22 Jul 2011

IRIN reports on challenges to fighting child malnutrition in Nepal

IRIN examines the "silent epidemic" of child malnutrition in Nepal, where nearly half of all children under five have stunted growth and 13 percent of children over six months and under five years old have moderate or severe acute malnutrition, a measurement known as global acute malnutrition.

22 Jul 2011

Attention must be paid to famine early warning systems

Early warnings about rising malnutrition, drought and possible famine in the Horn of Africa "went unheeded" for the past year, but "[w]hat is the point of an early warning system if nobody is listening?" a Globe and Mail editorial asks.

21 Jul 2011

GlobalPost examines GHI implementation in Guatemala

GlobalPost examines the prevalence of chronic malnutrition in Guatemala, which is one of the countries targeted by the Obama administration's Global Health Initiative (GHI). It also looks at how the GHI is being implemented in that country.

20 Jul 2011

Measles epidemic grips Kenya and Ethiopia

The UNICEF announced Friday that children in Kenya and Ethiopia are at risk of a measles epidemic. Ethiopia has had more than 17,584 cases of measles in 2011, with 114 deaths. The WHO urges measles vaccination of young children to combat the situation.

18 Jul 2011

Heavy rains, disease affecting drought refugees in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia

People who have fled the drought in Somalia to camps near the capital Mogadishu are being hit by cold, heavy rains, and at least five people have died of exposure, according to aid workers, BBC News reports.

16 Jul 2011

New ways for treating diabetes

Surgeons at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center are innovating new ways to treat diabetes using techniques from weight-loss surgery, including experimental procedures to improve blood glucose levels and address a major complication of the disease.

16 Jul 2011

Horn of Africa nations risk 'massive famine,' Shah says

The nations in the drought-stricken Horn of Africa "are at risk of 'massive famine,' Rajiv Shah, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), told the Huffington Post Wednesday."

15 Jul 2011

Guinea including nutrition component for first time in agricultural plan

For the first time, Guinea is including a nutrition component in its agricultural investment strategy, a move that experts "say … stems from an increasing recognition that agriculture must be harnessed to improve nutrition and health," IRIN reports.

8 Jul 2011

USAID's Nairobi-based DART to expedite additional U.S. humanitarian aid to the Horn of Africa

In the wake of the worst drought in the Horn of Africa since the 1950s, more than 10 million people—primarily in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia—are in need of emergency assistance. In response to this urgent need, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is standing up a Nairobi-based Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) to help expedite additional U.S. Government humanitarian aid to the Horn.

8 Jul 2011

UNHCR says African drought threatens 'Human tragedy of unimaginable proportions'

"High levels of malnutrition, combined with violence in the war-torn Horn of Africa nation, are threatening 'a human tragedy of unimaginable proportions,' the UNHCR warned" on Wednesday, the AFP/Daily Telegraph/Vancouver Sun reports.

8 Jul 2011

New strategy may combat age-associated infertility and birth defects

A strategy that has been shown to reduce age-related health problems in several animal studies may also combat a major cause of age-associated infertility and birth defects.

8 Jul 2011

Current prevention strategies may not be very effective at reducing in-hospital falls

While falls are a common cause of injury, particularly in older, hospitalized patients, some may not be as preventable as once thought. According to a new literature review published in the Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, many of the risks that frequently cause falls are not adequately addressed with the fall prevention initiatives used in healthcare facilities.

7 Jul 2011

Global food production needs to double by 2050 to achieve food security, survey shows

Global food production will have to increase 70 to 100 percent by 2050 to feed the world's predicted nine billion people, and that increase is only possible if more sustainable farming methods are used, according to the U.N.'s annual World Economic and Social Survey released on Tuesday, VOA News reports.

7 Jul 2011

Donor fatigue harming efforts to fight drought in Horn of Africa, aid agencies say

As a severe drought affecting Somalia, Kenya, Djibouti and Ethiopia forces more people into refugee camps, donor fatigue is harming aid agencies' abilities to work in the Horn of Africa, because "these recurrent droughts used to happen every 5-10 years but what we see now is it basically every other year ... an indication of climate change conditions," Michael Klaus, UNICEF spokesperson for east and southern Africa, told Reuters in an interview.

6 Jul 2011