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zeitgeist movie, part II - addendum
posted online today october 3rd http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7065205277695921912
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CARE rejects $46 million from the US, says American food aid hurts the poor
"An international aid group has turned away US$46 million (€34.32 million) in funding from the US government, arguing the way American food aid is distributed hurts poor farmers.
CARE said wheat donated by the US government and sold by charities to fund anti-poverty programs destroys local agriculture by dumping low priced crops on the market and local farmers cannot compete. Other experts said they share CARE's concerns, but say different kinds of help suit different situations.
"We are not against emergency food aid for things like drought and famine," CARE's Atlanta-based spokeswoman Alina Labrada, said Thursday, adding the process did not help those who consistently went hungry. "They are being hurt instead of helped by this mechanism"." "An international aid group has turned away US$46 million (€34.32 million) in funding from the US government, arguing the way Ame... more -
Doctors Without Borders: Ongoing needs in hurricane-damaged Haiti
Fourteen days after Tropical Storm Gustav made landfall, followed by Tropical Storm Hanna and then Hurricane Ike last week, many areas are still inaccessible in devastated Haiti.
Since arriving in the northern Haitian city of Gonaïves on September 4, one of the worst affected areas in the country, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams have carried out 641 medical consultations and performed 25 surgical procedures. Half of the people screened so far by MSF have suffered at least minor injuries. The remaining patients are suffering from diarrhea (and related dehydration), respiratory diseases, infections, and skin problems linked to polluted water, with such cases on the increase. While most of the patients are adults, an increasing number are children.
With floodwaters now receding slightly, people are beginning to return to Gonaïves, adding additional stress on already strained health and sanitation facilities. Temporary health clinics in some schools are lacking basic materials and equipment. MSF teams have donated medical materials and plans are underway to open a field hospital in Gonaïves.
Currently, MSF has five medical personnel (two doctors and three nurses) and six logistical staff (three general logisticians and three water and sanitation specialists) in Gonaïves.
Clean Water a Priority
At the Rabouteau Health Center in Gonaïves, MSF has carried out over 150 consultations as of yesterday. One-third of the people examined were children under five years of age. Two water bladders were also set up at the center in order to provide clean drinking water, which is in very short supply in the city.
Limited Access to Other Devastated Areas
Access to other hurricane-affected areas outside of Gonaïves is extremely difficult; many roads and airstrips are flooded, bridges are destroyed, and there is a general lack of fuel, which is reducing, if not preventing, relief assistance—including clean water, food, or basic medical needs—from reaching many parts of the country. MSF is doing its best to access these areas to provide adequate care to affected populations and to monitor the health situation.
On Monday night, MSF sent an additional five vehicles and one truck to Gonaïves by boat. In the coming days, a team of four medical personnel and two logisticians will attempt to start mobile clinics and surveillance activities in the northwest area between Gonaïves and Port de Paix (including Terre Neuve, Anse Rouge, and Gros Morne) which has an overall estimated population of close to one million people. An additional 13.2 tons of medical and logistical materials (medical kits, pumps, tents, mosquito nets, water treatment kits, water tanks, generators, and blankets) are on the way from Europe and from Panama.
Existing MSF activities in Port-au-Prince are continuing. MSF provides medical and surgical care at La Trinité Trauma Center, emergency obstetrical care in Jude Anne Hospital, and emergency health-care services and essential health services through mobile clinics in the Martissant slum.
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To help the people of Haiti you can also do so through Doctors Without Borders
http://doctorswithoutborders.org Fourteen days after Tropical Storm Gustav made landfall, followed by Tropical Storm Hanna and then Hurricane Ike last week, many areas... more -
In Haiti, `famine is just around the corner'
The images coming out of Haiti are as staggering as the statistics: four hurricanes in less than one month; hundreds dead, tens of thousands homeless, nearly a million people displaced. Eight of the country's 10 geographic departments are submerged in a blanket of brackish water, including Haiti's one remaining breadbasket, the Artibonite. Major arteries and bridges to the hardest hit areas have been wiped out.
Haiti is already the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. There will be no tomorrow for many of its eight million unless food, water and medical supplies are made available immediately, then dispersed in a coordinated, efficient and expedient manner.
There is no way to head off natural disasters, but something could have been done to save lives. Haiti is the only country in the Caribbean and Central America where the United States hasn't built an Emergency Relief Center (ERC) or a Disaster Relief Warehouse (DRW). Every other country in the region has at least one, according to the Miami-based U.S. Southern Command, which is responsible for security operations in Central and South America and the Caribbean.
Two years ago $635,000 was approved for an ERC in Port-au-Prince. Last year $271,000 was approved for a DRW. But because the Haitian government has not granted land titles, the projects are on hold. The metal sheets needed to construct the buildings remain stacked up in a warehouse. Instead of pulling blankets, food, water and medical supplies from a DRW in-country, hurricane victims have had to wait for helicopter drops and supplies from the U.S.S. Kearsarge.
''Based on things we've seen in other countries, we can assume that having them would have made things easier,'' said Steve Carro, humanitarian assistance program manager for Southcom. Jamaica, for example, has two DRWs and one EOC. When Gustav made landfall last month rescue teams were able to pull supplies from a nearby source, shortening the response time and reducing dependence on outside assistance.
Say what you will about the Cuban government, only five people lost their lives when two hurricanes made direct hits in less than eight days. ''There was an evacuation plan,'' said Gladys Rodes in a telephone interview from Havana. ``The government has centers where we can go for food, medicine, everything we need. It's very well organized. No one is left on their own.''
Haitian residents have always been on their own. Four years ago, when Tropical Storm Jeanne flooded Gonaives -- Haiti's second-largest city -- residents had no warning. Several thousand people lost their lives. The government was forced to rely on international aid; there was neither a national plan nor supplies for disaster relief.
Gonaives is flooded again, perhaps unnecessarily. In 2005, the World Bank launched the $12 million Emergency Recovery and Disaster Management Project to provide for, among other things, the construction of levees, terracing and drainage works. The other components of the project, including the construction of an office in the Ministry of Interior, ate up 90 percent of the budget. To date no real flood works projects have been built.
The relief effort must become the No. 1 priority for the country's newly installed government of Michéle Duvivier Pierre-Louis. She replaced Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis, who was ousted in April after riots sparked by rising food and fuel prices. According to the Family Early Warning Systems Network (composed of USAID, The European Union, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Program), 2.3 million Haitians were al ready in a precarious food security situation in July. The Family Early Warning Systems Network predicted that this number would double by December. This was before Faye, Gustav, Hanna and Ike pummeled Haiti.
*********CONTINUES The images coming out of Haiti are as staggering as the statistics: four hurricanes in less than one month; hundreds dead, tens of tho... more -
U.N. says North Korea needs $503 million in food aid
North Korea needs $503 million in food aid between now and November 2009 to avoid famine, which could be hampered by China's unwillingness to grant food export licenses, the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) said on Tuesday.
Tony Banbury, the WFP's regional director for Asia who has just spent a week in the reclusive country, said North Korea risked sliding back into famine if it did not get help now, with people already resorting to foraging to sustain themselves.
"We don't believe it's a famine. We are intent on making sure it doesn't turn into one. The operation will have a huge impact in preventing a worsening of the situation," he told a news conference in Beijing, referring to their new aid appeal.
North Korea, with a population of about 23 million, lost around 1 million people in a famine in the mid to late 1990s brought about by a mismanaged farm sector and floods.
Even with a good harvest, North Korea falls about 1 million tonnes, or 20 percent, short of its grain needs and relies heavily on aid from China, South Korea and United Nations agencies.
The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said in late March it expects North Korea to have a shortfall of about 1.66 million tonnes in cereals for the year ending in October 2008, the largest deficit in about seven years.
The WFP warned in July that North Korea was experiencing its worst levels of hunger in nearly a decade.
High global food prices are also making it harder for North Korea to buy food on the international market, as are China's restrictions on export licenses for grains and flour in order to control domestic inflation. North Korea needs $503 million in food aid between now and November 2009 to avoid famine, which could be hampered by China's unwi... more -
Ethiopia's new famine: 'A ticking time bomb'
By Rick Hampson, USA TODAY KONSO, Ethiopia - Once, the farmers walked for hours to bring their sorghum and maize here to market. These days they trod the same paths, parched grass crunching under foot, to carry their starving children to a feeding clinic.
Like crops, the children are weighed (in a nylon harness seat attached to a scale) and measured (with a tape to record arm circumference). The most severely malnourished are kept overnight for up to a month; the rest go home with a week's supply of Plumpy'nut, a nutritional paste By Rick Hampson, USA TODAY KONSO, Ethiopia - Once, the farmers walked for hours to bring their sorghum and maize here to market. These... more -
Green famine in Ethiopia
Guardian: The rains have come, the land is lush but Ethiopians still go hungry.
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Green famine in Ethiopia
The rains have come, the land is lush but Ethiopians still go hungry.
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The politics of rice
Inside USA travels to Haiti to look at how the stories of politics, rice and the US are deeply interwoven.
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Crisis Looms as Corporations Seize Control of Commodities
The global food crisis won't go away any time soon. Capitalism has the average consumer by the belly. Amid growing signs of famine and outrage, the entire chain of commodities and resources of the world are now being cornered by giant corporations. Farmland, water, fertilizer, seed, energy, and most of the basic necessities of life are falling under corporate control, providing increased wealth and power to the ruling elite while the rest of humanity struggles.
Commodity scarcity in India was recently reflected in the need to distribute fertilizer from the police station in Hingoli. Now police have to control the lines that form outside of dealer outlets, because the dealers won't open for business otherwise. Without this intervention there would be no fertilizer for the planting that must take place before the rain comes. In Akola and Nanded, police involvement is also needed. Agriculture officers have fled their work places to escape angry farmers. In Karnataka, a farmer was shot dead during protests, while farmers stormed meetings and set up road blocks in other districts.
Despite the success of the genetically engineered Bt cotton crops, the trend in India is now back to soybeans because they cost less to grow and need less fertilizer than cotton.
And it's not just fertilizer that is scarce. Seeds are also in short supply which is being blamed on agitation that has interfered with freight train traffic. However, the shortfall in seeds is 60 percent, a level more indicative of corporate intervention to drive up prices than the actions of powerless farmers.
As farmers fume, the Wall Street Journal heralds the whopping 42 percent jump in the fiscal third quarter profits of huge agriculture giant Archer-Daniels Midland. This increase includes a sevenfold rise in new income in units that store, transport and grade grains such as wheat, corn and soybeans.
The soaring profits of fertilizer maker Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan are reflected in the parabolic movement of its stock price from a yearly low of $70.35 to its current price of $238.22 per share. Shares of fertilizer and animal feed producer Mosaic Corp. have risen from a yearly low of $32.50 to a current price of $159.38.
Similar windfall profits are reported by GMO seed and herbicide king Monsanto whose last quarterly earnings surged by 45%.
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Click on the link for the full article and to access the in-text links. The global food crisis won't go away any time soon. Capitalism has the average consumer by the belly. Amid growing signs of famin... more -
Ethiopians still going hungry in 'green famine' despite rains and lush g...
Land in south-west Ethiopia is green, fertile and lush but this area is in the grip of the worst 'green famine' it has experienced in decades. Severe malnutrition can be found in many of the villages in the region.
The lushness of the land masks a near total crop failure across the district. More than 90% of the people here are smallholder farmers, surviving on twice-yearly harvests of maize and root crops. For them the poor harvests of 2007 and the repeated failure of the crucial March-May rains have spelled disaster.
In recent weeks the rain has arrived but it is too late. While the countryside is transformed into a sea of green, 50% of farmland lies uncultivated. So many livestock died in the recent drought that farmers are struggling to plant maize by hand. For those who have managed to get a crop down, it won't be harvested until September, and then production is expected to be low.
For the past three or four months, many families here have resorted to living on the roots of the "false banana" tree. When boiled the roots create a white and stringy substance that fills the stomach but is largely nutritionally deficient.
"This is the most desperate situation I have ever seen," says Teshfana Elias, a 20-year-old community health worker. "You can see that many people here are very ill from food shortages. Those most severely affected children are now getting help, but the number of malnourished children is growing all the time and this is a real concern.
The World Food Programme (WFP) has calculated that across Ethiopia the price of maize has increased by 100% and wheat by 40% since the end of last year, with prices set to keep rising.
Recent price hikes mean that after the crops failed again earlier this year, families are now unable to afford to buy the staple foods they need to keep going.
Is Ethiopia heading for another massive famine crisis? Or is it already there? What can people from wealthier countries do to affect grain prices? Land in south-west Ethiopia is green, fertile and lush but this area is in the grip of the worst 'green famine' it has exper... more -
Emperor - Chapter 8
Cannabis Hempseed as a Basic World Food
In 1937, Ralph Loziers, general counsel of the National Institute of Oilseed Products, told the Congressional committee studying marijuana prohibition that “hempseed... is used in all the Oriental nations and also in a part of Russia as food. It is grown in their fields and used as oatmeal. Millions of people every day are using hempseed in the Orient as food. They have been doing this for many generations, especially in periods of famine.”
That was over 70 years ago. Today we know hempseed is the plant kingdom’s richest source of life-giving essential fatty acids, and may well be the cure for cancer and heart disease. Cannabis Hempseed as a Basic World Food ... more -
Africa: link between crop failure and climate change often missed
Climate change has a profound effect on food security in Africa, as increasing temperatures and shifting rain patterns reduce access to food across the continent.
This transpired at a conference on global warming and climate change that started in Cape Town, South Africa, on July 21 and ends today.
The discussion was organised by South Africa’s Fynbos Foundation, which aims to realise investment in the media, publishing, arts and culture sectors, and the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University in the United States.
The relationship between climate change and food security is complex. Many factors influence food security, which means that often ‘‘the link is not even made between failed crops and changing weather patterns,’’ Dr Gina Ziervogel, senior researcher at the Climate Systems Analysis Group at the University of Cape Town, told the conference.
Over the past decade Ziervogel has conducted extensive research on people and the environment in southern Africa.
Climate change affects African food systems in the broadest sense of the word: ‘‘It affects the availability of, access to and utilisation of food,’’ she explained.
‘‘Changing weather patterns or extreme weather events, such as floods or droughts, can have negative consequences for agricultural production. As a result people have less access to food, which forces them to buy food products. This affects their financial situation.
‘‘It also influences their health as people often buy cheaper food which is frequently less nutritious. Especially for those who need a nutritious diet -- the chronically ill, for instance -- this poses a problem,’’ Ziervogel indicated.
Increasing temperatures and the change in precipitation and frequency of extreme weather spells also threaten African food systems, Ziervogel continued.
Changes in precipitation ‘‘are not merely about increasing or decreasing rainfall. Rainy seasons that begin later or earlier than normal or sudden rain spells hitting a region when it is supposed to be dry, have a greater impact on crops failing than a wetter rainy season that starts on time’’.
Another scenario where the effects of climate change on the vulnerability of food systems become visible is where arable land is lost. This happens as a result of declining ground water levels and rising sea levels. It can lead to aridity of the soil or increasing levels of saline.
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So instead of governments dealing with climate change, they would rather give multi nationals free reign over the food supplies of their country to peddle GM foods as if that is the answer. GM foods is then not the answer to the food crisis in Africa. Dealing with and adapting to climate change is. Conservation of water is. More efficient agricultural methods is. Dealing with lack of access to food by dealing with corrupt governments is. Educating and empowering people is. Climate change has a profound effect on food security in Africa, as increasing temperatures and shifting rain patterns reduce access t... more -
Treating Thousands of Malnourished Children In Ethiopia
In the past month Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has admitted more than 4,000 severely malnourished children into its nutritional programs in the Oromiya and Southern Nations and Nationalities People’s regions (SNNPR) of southern Ethiopia. On May 13, MSF set up a stabilization center to provide 24-hour medical care to severely malnourished children suffering from complications such as malaria or pneumonia in Ropi, Oromiya region. Since then two more centers have been set up in Senbete Shinquille and Shashemene, Oromiya region. In total 927 children have been admitted to these three centers, with 290 currently receiving care.
Many of them are suffering from kwashiorkor—a form of edema caused by malnutrition, which manifests in liquid retention in the legs and feet. Kwashiorkor is a serious condition that can lead to death from heart failure or other complications.
Children who are not suffering from complications are treated on an outpatient basis in outpatient therapeutic programs. They are provided with therapeutic food on a weekly basis, but are able to stay at home with their families. They return to these outpatient centers every week to be monitored by MSF medical staff and can be referred to a stabilization centre if necessary. In Oromiya MSF has eleven such outpatient centers in various locations throughout the region.
On June 2, MSF teams also started working in the Kambata zone of SNNPR. One stabilization center has been set up in Kachabira district. As of June 13, 150 children were receiving medical care there. Four outpatient centers have also been established; two in Kachabira district and two in Hadero district. In the last two weeks, more than 900 severely malnourished children have been admitted into these programs and are receiving therapeutic food.
In the coming days MSF will continue to expand its activities by increasing the number of outpatient centers in both Oromiya and SNNPR. In addition, MSF teams will continue to carry out assessments in order to identify the worst affected areas and respond where necessary.
The above is from the site for MSF:
http://doctorswithoutborders.org In the past month Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has admitted more than 4,000 severely malnourished children i... more -
The Ten Most Underreported Crises/Doctors Without Borders
These are the crises that go unreported by the MSM. The crises that show war, death, famine, and the daily struggle for survival that Doctors Without Borders does all in its power to combat with our help. I think these photos should be viewed as a reminder of the world we live in... a world that should be what we make it. And that should begin with basic human kindness, compassion, and responsibility not only to our planet but to each other. These are the crises that go unreported by the MSM. The crises that show war, death, famine, and the daily struggle for survival that ... more
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Ethiopians braced for new famine
Last year, the rains were good. Teagistu Gansamo filled the fertile earth of her half-acre plot with maize and bean seeds and, for months afterwards, she and her five children ate well.
A year later, she was squatting on a grubby pink blanket outside a rural health centre deep in Ethiopia's south, holding her listless infant son Harony tightly to her chest.
She walked eight miles through the heat of the day to bring Harony here to Boricha, 180 miles south of the capital Addis Ababa.
When nurses admitted him, into a ward crammed with 38 other severely malnourished babies, the boy with the narrow face and weak smile weighed less than a stone.
A year later, she was squatting on a grubby pink blanket outside a rural health centre deep in Ethiopia's south, holding her listless infant son Harony tightly to her chest.
She walked eight miles through the heat of the day to bring Harony here to Boricha, 180 miles south of the capital Addis Ababa.
When nurses admitted him, into a ward crammed with 38 other severely malnourished babies, the boy with the narrow face and weak smile weighed less than a stone.
Harony, and the others whimpering and crying around him, is one of the 126,000 children that Ethiopia's government and international aid agencies say are at immediate risk of starvation.
Across the country's south and east this year's early rains have failed, and the ghosts of the 1984 famine are haunting the land once again. More than 4.5 million people need emergency food in six of the country's nine regions.
"I am praying to God, I am telling him I will ask no more from him but to keep my son alive," said Mrs Gansamo, who guessed her age at 28.
"For three months, all we have eaten is the roots of plants. Even if the boy improves and I take him back to the village, there is no food there. I think he can fall sick again."
This is not supposed to happen in Ethiopia any more.
Mindful of the disaster of 1984, when more than a million starved to death, and well aware of the erratic effects of global climate change on previously predictable weather patterns, the government has invested heavily in preparing for fresh crises.
But this year a "perfect storm" of factors, fed in large part by soaring world food and fuel prices, has pushed large parts of the country to the edge once again.
Although last year's rains were good, the 13.2 million Ethiopians forced to depend on handouts during the last crisis in 2003, and the 10 million who needed aid in the emergency before that, in 2000, have barely had enough time to recover before this year's rains failed.
The drought that hit this year has withered seeds in the ground. Families have sold what they could: a goat, if they owned one, farm tools if they had them, and used the money to buy food in the market.
But the prices are now beyond most people's reach. Last year, the rains were good. Teagistu Gansamo filled the fertile earth of her half-acre plot with maize and bean seeds and, for mon... more -
George Galloway: Our Government's Dirty Little Secrets
We must start the story in Ethiopia, where 4 million people, according to the United Nations, are facing starvation and 120,000 Ethiopian children have just one month to live, according to last week's media reports. Television viewers were shocked to see the pictures last week of the widespread suffering redolent of 1984 and the great famine of that year.
The US and Britain immediately pledged $90 million in famine relief. Just one week after its appeal to the international community for famine relief, the Ethiopian Government increased their military budget by $50 million to $400 million. The regime in Addis Ababa—when I knew them in the 1980s, they were pro-Albanian Maoists—are the most militarised and heavily armed in Africa. They are in a state of perpetual war or preparation for war with one neighbour, Eritrea, and they are supporting anti-Government rebels in Sudan, many believe with western connivance.
Most astonishingly of all, the Government of Ethiopia—that starving country whose little children are fly infested, kwashiorkor swollen, famished and famine stricken—have been encouraged, armed, trained, financed and otherwise facilitated to invade and occupy their neighbour, Somalia, and create a reign of terror in that land, which is testified to by this voluminous Amnesty International report, which, if I had time, I would extensively quote from.
Somalia has lost thousands of dead as a result of the Ethiopian invasion. Millions have been displaced. Somalia, under Ethiopian occupation, is the grimmest prison state in Africa—far worse than Mugabe's Zimbabwe. Who has done the encouraging, the arming, the training, the financing and the facilitating? The same US and British Governments who donated the $90 million to the same Ethiopian Government who are burning their money and burning the villages, the neighbourhoods and the people of occupied Somalia.
This Government are never done talking about the shortcomings of African leaders. Just last week in Rome, the Secretary of State for International Development was roaring at Robert Mugabe, yet there has not been a squeak out of him, or any other Minister, about the much bigger crime in which we are ourselves deeply complicit. Is it any wonder that African opinion considers so much of what we have to say about misgovernance in Africa to be the deepest, most cynical hypocrisy?
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George Galloway, the heart and soul of the British parliament speaks truth. Thank you. The U.S. and British governments are complicit in the war and famine burning Africa to the ground. Where does it end? We must start the story in Ethiopia, where 4 million people, according to the United Nations, are facing starvation and 120,000 Ethiop... more -
'Forget climate change, we should spend on nutrition'
Malnutrition should be the world’s major priority for aid and development, a panel of eight leading economists, including five Nobel laureates, declared yesterday.
The provision of supplements of vitamin A and zinc to children in developing countries, to prevent avoidable deficiencies that affect hundreds of millions of children, is the most cost-effective way of making the world a better place, the Copenhagen Consensus initiative has found.
Three other strategies for improving diets in poor nations were also named among the top six of 30 challenges assessed by the project, which aims to prioritise solutions to the world’s many problems according to their costs and benefits.
Efforts to control global warming by cutting greenhouse gas emissions, however, were rated at the bottom of the league table, as the economists considered the high costs of such action were not justified by the payoffs. Research into new low-carbon technologies, such as solar and nuclear fusion power, was ranked as more worthwhile, in 14th place.
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This article is the result of the panels voting on the issues most important to deal with in our world. I did not come up with the headline or the story, I am simply the messenger of the news article to the Current community. Thank you all for responding and weighing in on this subject. Both are extremely important to me. Climate change is a long term goal, but starvation is an immediate goal. Please keep that in mind. Malnutrition should be the world’s major priority for aid and development, a panel of eight leading economists, including five Nobel l... more -
Canada moves to recognize Ukrainian famine
The Canadian government moved yesterday to become one of the first in the world to recognize the 1932-33 Ukrainian famine, the Holodomor, as a deliberate act of genocide. The Canadian government moved yesterday to become one of the first in the world to recognize the 1932-33 Ukrainian famine, the Holodom... more
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Doctors Without Borders: 'Plumpynut' new food advance to fight malnutrit...
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is calling for increased and expanded use of nutrient dense ready-to-use food (RUF) to reduce the five million annual deaths worldwide related to malnutrition in children under five years of age. Current food aid, which focuses on fighting hunger—not on treating malnutrition—is not doing enough to address the needs of young children most at risk.
What is therapeutic ready-to-use food?
Commercialized therapeutic RUF takes the form of a peanut/milk-based paste with all nutrients essential to treat severe acute malnutrition. It comes in individually wrapped airtight foil packets, that are resistant to bacterial infection and easy to distribute. The product has a long shelf life, making it easy to store, transport and to use in hot climates as an efficient way to provide milk to children under three.
"It's not only about how much food children get, it's what's in the food that counts," said Dr. Christophe Fournier, president of MSF's International Council. "Without the right amounts of vitamins and essential nutrients in their diet, young kids become vulnerable to disease that they would normally be able to fight off easily. Calls for increased food aid ignore the special needs of young children who are at the greatest risk of dying."
RUFs, which come in individually wrapped rations, contain all the necessary nutrients, vitamins, and minerals that a young child needs. This dense therapeutic food, which has milk powder, sugars, and vegetable fats, can be produced and stored locally and transported easily, and requires no refrigeration, making it ideal for use in hot climates. It allows a child to recover from being malnourished and catch up on lost growth. Being easy-to-use, mothers—not doctors and nurses—are the main caregivers, meaning far more children at risk can be reached.
"In Somalia we are giving acutely malnourished kids packets of ready-to-use food and we see them gain weight and begin thriving within a couple of weeks," said Dr Gustavo Fernandez, MSF head of mission in Somalia. "RUFs are practical to use in places like Somalia where security is very bad. General food distribution is also needed, but it is not going to be very effective to treat kids under three years old."
Severe acute malnutrition in early childhood is common in large areas of the Horn of Africa, the Sahel, and South Asia -- the world's "malnutrition hotspots." The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that there are 20 million young children suffering from severe acute malnutrition at any given moment and MSF estimates that only three percent of them will receive RUF in 2007. Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is calling for increased and expanded use of nutrient dense ready-to-use food (... more
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Famine
