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| © UNICEF/HQ06-2763/Bruno Brioni |
| COTE D'IVOIRE: A malnourished child drinks fortified milk while his mother watches at a centre in the rebel-controlled zone of Bouake. UNICEF provides supplementary feeding to families in the area. |
Nutrition and micronutrients
Nutrition supplies constitute an important part of the nutrition response for women and children. These supplies consist of specific therapeutic food and other supplies for therapeutic feeding centers, as well as for supplementary feeding interventions. UNICEF has the mandate to provide supplementary food and therapeutic food for infants and children. In 2011, Supply Division procured $166 million worth of nutritional supplies, including 27,000 tonnes of ready-to-use therapeutic food, mainly for emergency situations.
About 150 million children under five - one in four - are malnourished. UNICEF procures nutritional supplies such as high protein biscuits and micronutrients to combat this problem. These ranged from micronutrients, oral rehydration salts and zinc, therapeutic food for malnourished children to scales and cooking kits. The main focus was on supplies requested for emergency situations. There was a very large procurement of ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF), a paste made of peanut butter with added vitamins and minerals, especially for children starving in the Horn of Africa.
In 2011, UNICEF supplied 567 million donated and procured Vitamin A treatments from its Copenhagen warehouse, and procured 140 million sachets of multiple micronutrient powder and 136 million zinc tablets.
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