Almost 8 million children under 5 in 15 crisis-hit countries are at risk of death from severe wasting unless they receive immediate therapeutic food and care – with the number rising by the minute, UNICEF warned today as world leaders prepare to meet at the G7 summit. Since the start of the year, the escalating global food crisis has forced an additional 260,000 children – or one child every 60 seconds – to suffer from severe wasting in 15 countries bearing the brunt of the crisis, including in the Horn of Africa and the Central Sahel.

Global hunger crisis pushing one child into severe malnutrition every minute in 15 crisis-hit countries space.

The rate of increase in child wasting is based on publicly available estimates for January and June 2022 as found in National Nutrition Cluster estimates (Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger, Nigeria and DRC), Integrated Phase Classification Acute Malnutrition Analyses (Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Yemen, Madagascar and Haiti), Humanitarian Appeals for Children (Ethiopia, Afghanistan), and Humanitarian Needs Overviews (Sudan). The total number of children projected to suffer from severe wasting in January and June 2022 was estimated to be 7,674,098 and 7,934,357 respectively, an increase of 260,259 additional children. As a result of the global food crisis, UNICEF also estimates that the cost of treatment of child wasting has already increased by an estimated 16 per cent, driven largely by increases in the price of essential nutrition commodities and their raw materials.