Health
When malnutrition and sickness coincide easy to treat illnesses like diarrhea can turn fatal. Malnutrition, for example, remains an underlying cause in over half of all childhood deaths—some 5 million children each year.
Integral to Action Against Hunger’s field programs is a core concern with health. When someone suffers from malnutrition, they face an increased risk of disease and illness. For malnourished infants and young children, this increased risk can often mean the difference between life and death. Similarly, those weakened by sickness can readily fall victim to malnutrition, which then leads to a spiraling decline in their condition. And when malnutrition and sickness coincide, otherwise easy to treat illnesses, like diarrhea, can suddenly turn fatal. In fact, malnutrition remains an underlying cause in 53% of all deaths among children under five1.
Disease & Malnutrition: A Self-Reinforcing Relationship
Recognizing the symbiotic relationship between malnutrition and sickness, Action Against Hunger also fights the diseases that accompany poor nutrition. Through our efforts to fight acute moderate and severe malnutrition, we not only strive to save children from starvation, we seek to restore them to health. When a child undergoes treatment at a feeding center, we administer medication to prevent the kinds of infection and illness that can be most devastating if allowed to take root. The medications dispensed will vary depending on region, country, and national health protocols, but most frequently we administer three: Amoxicillin, an antibiotic effective against a wide spectrum of infections; Mebendazole, which kills most intestinal worms; and an anti-malarial drug.
Other health related activities include vaccination programs and vitamin A and iron supplementation for mothers and children, and instruction on how to foster health through good nutritional practices. In keeping with our overall approach to humanitarian aid, we coordinate closely with the existing public health system to ensure that our work draws on and strengthens local expertise. In the aftermath of a crisis, Action Against Hunger can help restore the public health infrastructure by fielding mobile health clinics to areas affected by epidemic, by rehabilitating and restocking public health centers, and by training local medical personnel on such topics as vaccinations, prenatal health care, and methods for identifying the symptoms of disease & malnutrition.
1 - Child Health Epidemiology Reference Group (CHERG) estimates of the percent distribution of under-five deaths by cause available in the WHO, World Health Report 2005.
