Elsewhere, breastfeeding mothers say they cannot produce enough milk for their babies due to lack of food, with some eating just once a day.
Medics report an increase of malnutrition cases and report that patients who were treated and recovered are now once again relapsing.
The children’s charity UNICEF is working to combat malnutrition in Malawi through ‘capacity building of health workers, toolkits for nutrition screening, RUTF and therapeutic milk, as well as promoting positive child feeding practices and behaviours’.
World Vision is one of the organisations responding to the disaster. Apart from exploring the options of reaching out to the victims with aid, it banks on its already existing projects aimed at reforestation and water conservation to minimise the impact of future disasters.
Experts say maize production – which is a major food crop – is at approximately 2.8 million metric tonnes from an annual requirement of around 3.7 million metric tonnes leaving a deficit of around 830,000 metric tonnes .
This means that challenges of malnutrition are likely going to increase mainly amongst children under the age of 5 years which may further contribute to increased fatality rates amongst the stated age group according to Sobhuza Sibande World Vision Malawi Humanitarian and Emergency Affairs Manager.
“Much as there are preparations being done to respond to the crisis, there is a big gap in required resources versus what is available. As World, the organisation always has a fund that is used to start up with response activities once a disaster hits which is called the National Emergency Preparedness Fund (NEPRF). Mostly it is not adequate to be used to support all those that are affected but it allows the organisation to get started as other resource mobilisation efforts begin,” Sibande told the Telegraph in an interview.
“In some areas the organisation has started procuring farm inputs to provide to some farmers who have the potential to do winter cropping while others are procuring food (like maize flour) to support those that are at the verge of starvation,” he added.
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