"It is a perfect storm, we have increasing malnutrition in an area that already has the majority of malnutrition in the world," Daniel Toole, Unicef's regional director for South Asia, said in the Indian capital, Delhi, on Tuesday.
"We have huge numbers of people living in poverty and a doubling of food prices. Those factors combined mean that we're going to just create tremendous vulnerability.
According to Unicef's latest State of the World's Children's report, India has the worst indicators of child malnutrition in South Asia: 48% of under fives in India are stunted, compared to 43% in Bangladesh and 37% in Pakistan
Meanwhile 30% of babies in India are born underweight, compared to 22% in Bangladesh and 19% in Pakistan. Unicef calculates that 40% of all underweight babies in the world are Indian.
Put all that in hard numbers and the figures are stark. Fifty million Indian under fives are affected by malnutrition. Rising food prices, Unicef says mean 1.5 to 1.8 million more children in India alone could end up malnourished.
Three hundred million Indians live on less than $1 a day, according to the UN.
Poor families who cannot afford rising food prices are having to save money where they can, and that also means spending less on healthcare and education.
Thank you Rob.
Thank you to Rob Veitch, who has made the first donation Lalita's surgery. Thanks to Mr Veitch, we have US$180 to put towards the surgery.Also a big thank you to Daniele Marcos who donated $30 towards the surgery and to Bhikubhai who came forward to donate the remaining $200.
Without supporters like you, none of this would be possible!
School Girl needs abdominal surgery.
One of our school children, Lalita, was complaining of abdominal pain. We rushed her to Narendra hospital where she was admitted because she had narrowing of the bowel caused through tuberculosis infection. They did an 'abdominal sub oclusion' to fix the blockage. The surgery and 14 days in hospital came to a total of US $390.We can't pay for these cases without your help, please give a life-line to these poor people so that we can get them the medical care they need. Every little bit helps and we need to get Lalita's surgery paid for so that we can keep this blog rolling.
Bhagavati had a successful surgery
GOOD NEWS!
Bhagavati's operation was successful. She came to our school and saw our school doctor, who changed the dressing and said that there is no infection and it is healing nicely.
The operation was a "bone graft" which means that tissue was grafted to fill in the places where the bone had become hollow from being broken multiple times and left without treatment.
We will send Bhagavati back to Delhi on 20th April for a check up and to have the stitches taken out. She is very happy and no longer in pain, THANK YOU!
Thank you Bharat & Harsha
Thank you to Bharat and Asha Patel who, despite making a recent donation, were once again moved by this case and have donated the entire amount to make sure that this little girl is looked after.
Young girl wants to feel normal
Ragini is a ten year old girl who has been suffering with her hand in this shape for the last 7 months. She was playing at melting a plastic bag but the play went wrong and the bag melted onto her hand, burning it badly. She has been on our waiting list for on month as we have pushed ahead more urgent cases, but now we feel that her turn has come up. It is a fairly inexpensive operation, just US$210 to give her back the use of her hand.
Thank you Sara and Goverdhanji.
Thank you to Sara Berggren who donated the last $300 for Bhagavati's operation. Also a big thank you to Goverdhanji who has contributed an extra $50 which we will use to make sure that Bhagavati has everything she needs while she is in hospital.A big thanks to all Bhagavati's donors, we will post updates on her progress as soon as we can.
Just a few more $ needed
Thanx to the pledges of help from and Asha and Bharat from San Diego ($300) and Ashleigh Lincoln ($50); we have now raised a total of $1050, meaning that we just need another $300 before we can send Bhagavati for her operation.
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