We have all seen the pictures on television and in magazines of
emaciated children looking at us with gaunt faces and vacant eyes.
The images are moving and disturbing, but if they do not lead to an
effective response, they are used in vain.
Malnutrition can be fatal. Every year, it contributes to the
death of five million children under the age of five. But more of
the same kind of food aid impoverished countries now receive will
do nothing to reduce these deaths. We need to focus on the food
quality, not just the quantity.
I recently spent a year running a nutritional program in Niger,
where, along with other parts of Africa and South Asia, the most
cases of childhood malnutrition are found. While there, I became
convinced that large numbers of deaths among acutely malnourished
children can be prevented by using an innovative nutrient-dense
ready-to-use food that is revolutionizing the treatment and
prevention of acute malnutrition. If we are to combat malnutrition,
we must increase the use of this food and expand the range of
products.
As any parent knows, children grow and develop at breakneck speed
until age three, and sound nutrition is vital to a healthy life. We
nurture growth in our own children by providing a varied diet that
contains milk (either through breast-feeding or formula), other
dairy products and nutritious supplements - just think of the baby
food choices available to families in any American supermarket.
For years, it has been difficult to deliver the nutrient value
of milk in communities in Africa and Asia that do not produce or
have the resources to buy milk. Without refrigeration and clean
water, powdered milk and baby formula are prone to bacterial
contamination and cause more harm than good.
Ten years ago, Andre Briend, a French scientist, devised a paste
of powdered milk, ground peanuts, oil, sugar, vitamins and minerals
that solves the problems of preparation, storage and contamination
because it is prepared without water. The paste, known as
ready-to-use food, can be made locally; children can eat it
directly from individual foil packets.
More important, most children can be treated at home, rather
than being hospitalized. This vastly increases the number of
children who can be reached. In Niger, I saw how ready-to-use food
enabled thousands to recover from malnutrition.
In 2006, my colleagues at Doctors without Borders and I treated
more than 150,000 malnourished children worldwide - in Niger, more
than 9 out of 10 recovered. But these numbers are a small fraction
of those in need.
Under United Nations and United States guidelines, only 3
percent of the world's 20 million malnourished children - those
with the severest forms of malnutrition and the highest risk of
death - have access to ready-to-use food.
These conditions are too limiting. Children should not have to
deteriorate to the point of severe malnutrition to "qualify" for
ready-to-use food, which is far more nutritious than the fortified
blended flours prescribed and supplied by the US and other
international donors for moderately malnourished children. Yes,
ready-to-use food may cost more, but it provides the milk that
fortified flours do not.
The US is the largest single donor of food aid in the world, but
it does not provide enough of what young children really need. As
the farm bill progresses through Congress, there has been much
debate on improving the delivery of food aid. But Congress must
also address the quality of this aid.
If ready-to-use food is distributed more widely and replaces
blended flours, fewer children will die of malnutrition. It is what
the children staring at us in those harrowing images need and
deserve.
(The New York Times Syndicate by Susan Shepherd
via China Daily February 1, 2008)
