Child malnutrition and COVID-19: the time to act is now

by Henrietta H. Fore, Qu Dongyu, David M. Beasley, and Tedros A. Ghebreyesus

The COVID-19 pandemic is undermining nutrition across the world, particularly in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs).1 The worst consequences are borne by young children. Some of the strategies to respond to COVID-19—including physical distancing, school closures, trade restrictions, and country lockdowns—are impacting food systems by disrupting the production, transportation, and sale of nutritious, fresh, and affordable foods, forcing millions of families to rely on nutrient-poor alternatives. Strained health systems and interruptions in humanitarian response are eroding access to essential and often life-saving nutrition services.2 Social protection systems in many LMICs are overloaded as vulnerable families struggle to access the food and services they need in the context of an economic downturn.

Malnutrition could exacerbate the effects of COVID-19 in mothers and children. At the same time, more children are becoming malnourished due to the deteriorating quality of their diets, interruptions in nutrition and other essential services, and the socioeconomic shocks created by the pandemic in LMICs. New estimates by Derek Headey and colleagues3 in an accompanying Comment in The Lancet suggest that without timely action, the global prevalence of child wasting could rise by a shocking 14·3%. With an estimated 47 million children younger than 5 years affected by wasting globally before the COVID-19 pandemic,4 this would translate to an estimated additional 6·7 million children with wasting during the first 12 months of the pandemic—80% of them in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia—and more than 10 000 additional child deaths per month during this same period.3

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