-
Eastern Cape has amongst the highest rates of deaths in children from acute malnutrition.
The Eastern Cape head of the health department, Dr Rolene Wagner says the province urgently needs a multi-pronged approach to prevent young children from dying from acute malnutrition-related complications.
The Department of Health appeared in front of the Human Rights Commission to provide an update on the progress made in curbing malnutrition in the Eastern Cape.
The country recorded 573 deaths associated with severe acute malnutrition complications in 2024. KwaZulu-Natal recorded the highest number of deaths, followed by Limpopo and the Eastern Cape.
Dr Wagner says this crisis is due to socioeconomic factors such as high levels of poverty and unemployment.
“Often severe malnutrition is not the cause, it’s the underlying cause. So once we analyse what the causes are, the next stage is to analyse where it is occurring. If you have limited resources at the right places, in order to have the desired impact, in our department, we have actually focused on active case finding through our community-based outreach team. And we are capacitating community development workers to identify children at risk and linking them with care.”
EC Malnutrition | The lives of children call for absolute urgency: Dr Eileen Carter
