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Virus-linked hunger tied to 10,000 child deaths each month

Published:Tuesday | July 28, 2020 | 9:28 AM
Fatima Li, 20, foreground, holds her two-year-old son, Hama Sow, as he is treated with a feeding tube for malnourishment, as Hadiara Ouedraogo (left) sits with her granddaughter, Fatimata Ouedrago, 2, who has edema due to severe malnourishment, at Yalgado Ouedraogo University in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso on Monday, June 22, 2020. (AP Photo/Sam Mednick)

HOUNDE, Burkina Faso (AP) — The lean season is coming for Burkina Faso’s children.

And this time, the long wait for the harvest is bringing a hunger more ferocious than most have ever known.

That hunger is already stalking Haboue Solange Boue, an infant who has lost half her former body weight of 5.5 pounds in the last month.

With the markets closed because of coronavirus restrictions, her family sold fewer vegetables. Her mother is too malnourished to nurse her.

“My child,” Danssanin Lanizou whispers, choking back tears as she unwraps a blanket to reveal her baby’s protruding ribs. The infant whimpers soundlessly.

All around the world, the coronavirus and its restrictions are pushing already hungry communities over the edge, cutting off meagre farms from markets and isolating villages from food and medical aid.

Virus-linked hunger is leading to the deaths of 10,000 more children a month over the first year of the pandemic, according to an urgent call to action from the United Nations shared with The Associated Press ahead of its publication in the Lancet medical journal.

Further, more than 550,000 additional children each month are being struck by what is called wasting, according to the UN — malnutrition that manifests in spindly limbs and distended bellies.

Over a year, that’s up 6.7 million from last year’s total of 47 million.

Wasting and stunting can permanently damage children physically and mentally, transforming individual tragedies into a generational catastrophe.

“The food security effects of the COVID crisis are going to reflect many years from now,” said Dr Francesco Branca, the World Health Organization head of nutrition. “There is going to be a societal effect.”

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