No fewer than 95,245 children below five years are stunted in Osun state as a result of malnutrition, the United Nation Children's Fund (UNICEF) has disclosed.
Following this, the UNICEF urged the Osun State government to pay attention to early child care that would cover children below three years in addition to its school feeding programme in the state.
A nutrition specialist with UNICEF, Mrs Ada Ezeogu, said this during a media dialogue on child malnutrition with the theme "Good Nutrition, Invest More".
"21.8 per-cent of children in Osun are stunted and that the situation could improve if the early child care is included in the school feeding programe," she said.
Ezeogu explained that the figure stated was generated from National Nutrition and Health Survey 2015.
She commended Osun State governor, Mr Rauf Aregbesola for the school feeding programme in the state and urged him to take proactive measures in addressing the current situation.
She, however, said that the current 21.8 per-cent malnutrition level in the state was not acceptable.
She lamented that over 50 per-cent of infant death in the country occurred as a result of malnutrition and called on government and stakeholders to address the situation and prevent avoidable infant deaths.
She frowned that one out of three children in Nigeria do not get adequate feeding and admonished mothers to ensure exclusive breastfeeding of their children from birth to six month of life and to ensure optimal infant and young child feeding in the first 1,000 days of life.
ENDS
Written by NEWSTRAWL ONLINE UPDATE
Sodiq Oyeleke is a Media, Human Resources, Project Management and Public Relations Practitioner
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