On October 6, 2008, the international nutrition community set new standards for prioritizing animal source foods in the diets of moderately malnourished children. The Global Livestock CRSP received the following press release from Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) following the agreement.
MSF PRESS RELEASE: WHO Experts Raise Antiquated Nutrition Standards
For Immediate Release
Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)
WHO Experts Raise Antiquated Nutrition Standards
Major implications for millions of malnourished children
Geneva, October 6, 2008-- After decades of neglect and poor standards for
nutrition programs. the international nutrition community has put forth a
clear set of principles to reduce deaths in moderately malnourished
children. These new standards could positively impact 55 million moderately
malnourished children worldwide, but only if they are translated into more
effective food programs.
After a week-long meeting, World Health Organisation (WHO) experts have just
agreed that animal source food such as dairy products are the first and most
effective choice to treat moderately malnourished children. According to the
medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans
Frontières (MSF), this new standard can significantly reduce child deaths.
But the impact of these new rules will depend on the creation of new
initiatives to support and fund programs.
Currently, food programs targeted at moderately malnourished children are
mainly cereal-based and lack many of the nutrients young children need.
"Fortified blended flours based on wheat or corn plus soy that are so widely
used no longer meet the new minimum criteria that the WHO experts have just
set for young kids," said Christophe Fournier, President of the MSF
International Council. "With everyone now agreeing that malnutrition in
children needs to be treated with animal source food, this should be the
beginning of the end of providing poor quality diet to malnourished,
vulnerable children."
In the areas most devastated by malnutrition, such as South Asia, the Sahel,
and the Horn of Africa no other condition contributes more to death and
illness in children.
The newly recommended animal source foods will make nutrition programmes for
children much more expensive. MSF estimates that it will cost 3.5 billion
euros annually to adequately address moderate malnutrition worldwide.
"National governments and donors need to urgently put new policies and
funding in place to implement these new standards," said Fournier. "Not
doing so would be endorsing double standards in which we would continue to
give food aid that we would not feed to our own children."
MSF has recently made it a policy to treat all malnourished children with at
least some animal source food and has begun to implement this strategy in
all its nutrition programs worldwide. In 2006 and 2007, the organization
treated over 150,000 malnourished children in 22 countries with therapeutic
and supplemental food.
The WHO experts meeting for "The Dietary Management of Moderate
Malnutrition" was held in Geneva from September 30-October 3, 2008.
________________________________
Dr. Buddhima Lokuge
U.S. Manager
Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines Doctors Without Borders/Médecins
Sans Frontières (MSF)
To read about the GL-CRSP's efforts to include animal source foods (ASF) in the diets of malnourished children and families in Ghana, click here to visit the ENAM (Enhancing child Nutrition through Animal source foods Management) project.
To read about the GL-CRSP's efforts to increase ASF in the diets of HIV-infected Kenyan women and their children, visit the HNP (HIV Nutrition Project).
