Nigeria Faces Stunted Generation, Is No. 2 for Malnourished Kids
- 42% of children under 5 are stunted and 83% are anemic
- Crisis is driven by conflict, Covid-19 and climate change
Health officials attend to a child suffering malnutrition in a clinic in Katsina State, northwest Nigeria, in 2022.
Photographer: Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP/Getty Images
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Nigeria faces the risk of a generation of stunted adults as climate change and conflict have resulted in the country having the second-largest number of malnourished children globally after India.
Of the 36 million Nigerians under five years of age, 15 million are stunted, 2.8 million are severely wasted and 3O million are anemic, according to figures provided by the United Nations Children’s Fund, or Unicef. Saving these children would cost about $120 each, mostly in the form of therapeutic food, according to the agency.