Health and Nutrition
The right to access health care is enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child; therefore, UNICEF helps to improve healthcare services that can respond promptly to the needs of Venezuelan children and adolescents.
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Challenge
Boys and girls who suffer from anemia and malnutrition have their development compromised, are more vulnerable to diseases and show greater apathy when playing, learning and interacting with other people.
Vaccination of boys and girls is a matter of top priority. Although considerable progress has been made in this area in the last 20 years, challenges remain, intensified by the COVID-19 pandemic, that prevent universal coverage from being achieved. Another priority aspect is to reduce infant mortality rates, because challenges continue to exist in childbirth care and in the adequate nutrition of pregnant and lactating women and children under 5 years of age.
Solution
The main objective is that all children and adolescents have access to universal health and nutrition services.
Health and good nutrition are essential for the growth and development of children.
UNICEF works closely with national bodies in charge of formulating public policies, providing technical assistance to strengthen them. In addition, it contributes to strengthening the capacities of the institutions responsible for providing basic health and nutrition services.
In this way, we seek to ensure that all children can survive and thrive, having access to nutritious food, quality primary health care, appropriate parenting practices and essential supplies.
The country program 2023 – 2026 - through an approach with a gender perspective and focused on equity - aims to guarantee that, by 2026, all children and adolescents in Venezuela, including the most vulnerable, can fully exercise all their rights and develop their full potential in a safe and inclusive society.
UNICEF contributions for the health and nutrition of Venezuelan children in 2022:
- UNICEF provided support in technical assistance, training for health personnel, rehabilitation of spaces, equipment, supply of vaccines, birth kits and other supplies necessary for health care and reducing the risk of maternal and child mortality in 319 facilities. health (including 89 hospitals).
- The recovery and installation of a river clinic as a result of the joint effort between UNICEF, the Government of Delta Amacuro and the national health authorities to reach, with comprehensive health, water, sanitation and hygiene and protection programs, the ethnic communities. Warao indigenous people, who live in the lower Orinoco Delta, which are places that are difficult to access. With this action, more than 180 remote indigenous communities received health services, including maternal and child care, immunization, mental health and nutrition.
- UNICEF contributed to the rehabilitation of two river ambulances and two land ambulances in which 194 transfers were carried out, benefiting approximately 700 people, most of them children, adolescents and women.
- More than 281 thousand children under five years of age throughout Venezuela received assistance from nutrition services supported by UNICEF. Additionally, nutritional supplies were also provided.
- UNICEF contributed to strengthening the technical capacities of health professionals and families and communities for the early detection of the nutritional status of children, so that they receive timely care.
- In 2022, the training of health personnel was one of the central axes of UNICEF's work in the country. For this reason, it designed a virtual campus and a digital platform for training on priority topics such as those related to the COVID-19 pandemic and the strengthening of cold chain capacities. In total, more than 11,000 workers in the sector were trained.