• The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) is planning to launch a pilot project of supplying nutritious food for children in the State.
• Unicef, with the help of government departments involved in child care, other stakeholders and NGOs, is proposing to launch Community Based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) and supply Ready to Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) in the State.

About Malnutrition & Ready to Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF):

• “Acute malnutrition is one of the reasons for child deaths in the world, and some lakhs of children are dying due to malnutrition every year across the globe.
• RUTF contains therapeutic milk, sugar, oil and peanuts, which contain high vitamins, minerals and nutritious supplements, and the product saved some thousands of children suffering from severe malnutrition.

IMR in India

• In India, the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) among every one lakh children is 126 (i.e. infants aged below six months), and the reason is malnourishment, according to the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) records.
• “In Andhra Pradesh, IMR is 39, and the reasons for the deaths are poor diet, child marriages, and premature births. We are trying to bring down the IMR in the State by organising awareness programmes in villages.
• As many as 55,607 anganwadi centres are there in A.P., and 26.62 lakh children are enrolled in these centres. Besides, some lakhs of children are suffering from acute malnutrition in primary and upper primary schools in the State.
• Recently, Unicef, in association with Women Development and Child Welfare (WD&CW) officials, held a meeting on CMAM in the city, and discussed about launching of the project.

Source: The Hindu