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WORLD> Africa
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UN: Funding needed to avert malnutrition in Somalia
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-02-26 15:55 NAIROBI -- The UN humanitarian agency says urgent funding is required to avert worsening malnutrition, disease in Somalia. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) cautioned that without an immediate infusion of funding, the already grave malnutrition and disease levels in Somalia will reach alarming rates. According to UN news release, the Office in its alert to donors has highlighted the need for assistance for emergency nutrition as well as Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) programs in two regions in north and central Somalia. OCHA warned that more people could become vulnerable to water- borne diseases, which are responsible for 20 percent of deaths among children under the age of five in the Horn of Africa nation. More than one-quarter of the over 200,000 acutely malnourished children are in need of immediate treatment to survive. |
