Sri Lanka’s Health Ministry has rejected the recent report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on child malnutrition in Sri Lanka.
The report ranks Sri Lanka 6th due to underweight children under five years of age.
The Director of the South Asian region of the UNICEF George Larry Adje, who was on a visit to the country recently, also stated that Sri Lanka is the second most undernourished country in South Asia.
He pointed out that due to the increase in the cost of living that has occurred with the economic crisis in the country, the diet of the people has been severely affected and he stated that the reason for this is the increase in food prices day by day.
Refuting the report, Sri Lanka’s Health Ministry Secretary Janaka Sri Chandraguptha told the media that they are not satisfied with the data the UNICEF has used to compile this report.
According to the national level survey conducted by the Medical Research Institute at the end of 2021, it has been confirmed that the malnutrition status of children under 5 years of age in Sri Lanka has decreased by 13.2 percent.
However, the UNICEF report that claims the malnutrition status of children has greatly increased based on long-term data is incorrect, he said.
Chandraguptha also said that to calculate malnutrition status three factors – stunting, wasting, and weight for height should be considered for a short time period but the UNICEF has prepared an incorrect report based on wasting alone and using a long time period.
He added that the UNICEF has compared the data of the surveys conducted in different years for each country and for Sri Lanka data from surveys over a long period of time from 1995 to 2019 have been compared.
He pointed out that the UNICEF report has taken the demographic and health survey data of 2016 and considered 15 percent thinness for the country, adding that thereby the statement made by UNICEF without a base year is incorrect. (NewsWire)