The cases of malnutrition in children in Karnali Province are rampant in recent years.
A total of 20,092 children were admitted to 654 hospitals in the Province within the current fiscal year 2021/20, according to Karnali Health Directorate.
The Province has 10 districts that recorded the highest cases of malnutrition in the Dailekh (578 cases) district followed by Surkhet (400 cases) and Mugu (91cases).
Apart from malnutrition, cases of anaemia, stunting and low weight at birth were also recorded in children in Kalikot, Jajarkot and Mugu districts.
According to Kalpana Rokaya, a health worker in the health post in Barekot Limsa in Jajarkot, two children died due to malnutrition in Jajarkot last fiscal year.
Similarly, Karnali Province Hospital's senior paediatrician Dr Nawaraj KC asserted that malnutrition could not be alleviated until poverty is eradicated.
According to him, babies born to younger mothers weigh only one or two kilogrammes. "Malnutrition-related cases were growing since mothers are unable to breastfeed their newborns on time," he shared.
A total of 55 per cent of children below five years were suffering from under-nutrition, over-nutrition, malnutrition, underweight, obesity, stunting and wasting among others.
Malnourished children and newborns apart, 166 new mothers died in lack of timely treatment in the Province over nine years, the statistics of the Directorate revealed.
The federal government introduced Multi-sectoral Nutrition Plan in the fiscal year 2015/16 in the Karnali zone with an objective to make all local levels nutrition-friendly by 2030.
The federal government also allocated Rs 190 million for nutrition-related programmes and projects for 79 local levels in Karnali Province for 2020/21, according to the Directorate. The budget is being mobilized for distributing nutritional foods and launching an awareness drive on nutrition and sanitation among others.
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