VnnNews – Viet Nam is among 24 countries with the largest numbers of children under five years old who are moderately or severely stunted.
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Stunted and underweight children get treatment at a health clinic in Lam Dien Commune, Chuong My District in Ha Noi. |
While the rate of undernourished children had been dramatically reduced to 19.9 per cent last year from 31.1 per cent in 2001, the number of children who were stunted in Viet Nam was over 2 million, said Marjatta Tolvanen-Ojutkangas, chief of Child Survival and Development of UNICEF Viet Nam.
According to the report, the rate of stunted children in Viet Nam was extremely high.
She said that the figure “can be considered as a wake-up call” for Viet Nam.
Potential
“Vietnamese children are not always this small; they have the potential to grow taller,” Marjatta said.
She proved her statement by citing results of studies on the children of Vietnamese parents living in France, which showed that those children grew taller than children in Viet Nam.
“When we want to improve children’s heights, we need to start paying more attention to women’s health and nutrition,” she said.
Poor hygiene and sanitation, along with poor breastfeeding and complementary feeding practices, were also hindrances to child growth rates, she said.
Khe said that the country had ratified the National Plan on Child Survival for 2009-15 in July, which was expected to reduce child mortality and disease rates.
The plan was expected to reduce the rate of underweight children below five years old to 15 per cent and to reduce stunted rates to less than 25 per cent.
Approximately 200 million children under five in the developing world suffered from stunted growth, and 90 per cent of stunted children lived in Asia and Africa, according to the report.
VietNamNet/Viet Nam News
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