Attachments
Overview of Nutrition Situation and 2016 Response Plan
Given the small number of nutrition data that has been collected and the vulnerability of the population to malnutrition as a result of food insecurity and poor access to health services, in 2015 & 2016,
Partners supported the implementation of SMART nutrition surveys & rapid nutrition assessments in besieged & hard to reach areas by partners acting from North cross borders.
In 2015 SMART surveys targeting both IDPs and Host population were conducted in parts of some governorates, acceptable levels of malnutrition (GAM <5%, June 2015) being recorded in Hama (GAM 2.4%) and Aleppo (GAM 1.3%) governorates. The estimated prevalence of chronic malnutrition stunting is 23%, 26% & in Aleppo &Hema, respectively.
Nevertheless, the severity of chronic malnutrition is categorized as medium (prevalence between 20-29%), potentially reflecting a longer term inadequate dietary intake, including micronutrients, repeated infections such as diarrhea in younger children, as well as poor feeding practices as reflected by low uptake of exclusive breastfeeding in the first 6 months of life.
In January - March, 2016 UNICEF supported rapid nutrition assessments in some of the besieged and hard to reach areas. The results of the rapid SMART screening conducted in some of the areas indicate overall low levels of malnutrition or risk for death due to malnutrition ranging from 2.5% in Azaz and 4.8% in Homs, However, these results should be interpreted with cautious as there was several limitations including limited access, remote trainings for enumerators with limited supervision during the data collection as well as methodologies used were not standard because of access constrains and appropriate anthropometric equipment’s are not available inside besieged areas.
Pre conflict data indicated prevalence of acute malnutrition ranging from 11.9% in Hama to 5.7% in Aleppo (PAFAM, 2009), where data from RNA among IDPs accessed from Damascus also indicated critical nutrition situation (above 10%) in Aleppo and Hama, data from rapid assessment also collected in 2016 in rural areas accessed from the North indicated low malnutrition as indicated above. The actual population / sub-districts accessed by the 2 assessments was different having been approached from opposite sides (Damascus and Gaziantep)
Though the overall GAM rate is still not considered “critical” by international standards absolute number of children at risk should be highlighted (considering that these are dense areas with IDPs). This should be also supplemented by additional contextual information An estimated 1.8 million boys and girls aged 6-59 months and 1.3 million pregnant and lactating women (PLWs) are in need of preventive and curative nutrition services in 2016. Of these, an estimated 86,000 children aged 6-59 months are acutely malnourished, 670,000 children suffer from micronutrient deficiencies, 1 million children under 2 years of age require optimal feeding to ensure adequate nutrition status and 266,368 PLW require preventive nutrition services against undernutrition and for optimal nutrition wellbeing of which 975,661 children under 5 and 709,875 PLWs are targeted in North Syria