A surge in the flow of aid into the Gaza Strip since the truce between Israel and Hamas took effect on Jan. 19 is likely to ease the acute food emergency afflicting people in the war-ravaged territory, especially its children. But even after relief reaches them, the hunger they have endured could cast a shadow over their health for years to come.

 

More than 60,000 children in Gaza will need treatment for acute malnutrition in 2025, according to United Nations estimates from Jan. 22. Some have already died – estimates of how many vary widely. Survivors who are able to return to adequate levels of nutrition nonetheless face an insidious threat: the multiple long-term health problems linked to childhood malnutrition.

This troubling prospect is of urgent global concern. As Reuters has reported in a series of articles, famine and other acute food crises have ravaged populations across the developing world over the past year, from Haiti to Afghanistan to Sudan and many other African nations, as well as Gaza.

 

About 131 million children, nearly 40 million of them under age 5, live in areas experiencing acute food crises around the world, according to estimates provided exclusively to Reuters by the United Nations’ World Food Programme. Nearly 4.7 million pregnant women live in these areas, the United Nations Population Fund said. The U.N. estimates are based on the most recent data from countries where assessments were possible.