Attachments
1. Cluster highlights
• A total of 455,966 of which 166,960 Women and 282,401 children under 5 were reached by preventative and therapeutic nutrition interventions between Jan and Jun 2017 .
• Six partners’ rapid response teams provided curative and preventive nutrition services to 3,967 children under 5 years and 1,912 PLW , for new IDPs families in rural Aleppo and Idleb,
• A total of 22 partners reported activities in nutrition in June 2017 in 349 communities in 66 Sub -districts in 24 districts in 7 governorates from cross boarder.
4. Overview of Nutrition Situation:
• In January 2017 Nutrition SMART survey was conducted in eastern Ghouta- Rural of Damascus during (5/1/2017 to 14/1/2017). Prevalence of acute malnutrition based on weight-height z-scores is 2.1 % ( 1.2- 3.5 95% CI) , Prevalence of underweight based on weight-for-age z-scores (9.6 % ( 7.4-12.3 95% CI) Prevalence of stunting based on height-for-age z-scores 30.5 % (25.7-35.8 95% CI), which is much higher than the national average of 16% (SMART surveys, 2016) , the severity of chronic malnutrition is categorized as severe problem (prevalence between 30-39%), that required immediate humanitarian assistance 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 & complementary food in term of quality and frequency.
• In March 2017 nutrition cluster with technical support from the global nutrition cluster rapid response team conducted Infant and young child feeding, Knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP assessment) in Aleppo, Idleb and Hama in North Syria governorates, areas accessible from Turkey cross border, the results revealed that: Exclusive breastfeeding rate is 30.9% (25.3% - 36.8% C.I), early initiation 37.8% (34.6% - 41.0% CI), Minimum acceptable diet 57.3% (53.4%- 61.1% CI), which is lower than pre conflict data of all key indicators with 46% of children in the country initiating breastfeeding within the first hour of life and even less (43%) able to exclusively breastfeed for the first six months of life. However, there is an improvement of the exclusive breast feeding rates compared to post crises in Hama and Idleb 21.2% & 21.1% as per the SMART survey (2014-2015), this may be due to the scale up on infant and young child feeding programme by partners and large scale advocacy