WHO guideline on the prevention and management of wasting and nutritional oedema (acute malnutrition) in infants and children under 5 years
Año de publicación: 2023
Over 45.4 million infants and children under 5 years of age experience wasting each year. The risk of
wasting and nutritional oedema in infants and children, particularly in high-risk contexts where health
and socioeconomic indicators are at their poorest, is heightened by ongoing crises including climate
change, the COVID-19 pandemic, and conflict. There have therefore been major challenges along the
road to achieving global targets for wasting and nutritional oedema including Sustainable Development
Goal 2 to reach “Zero Hunger” by 2030.
In 2019, the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General released the Global Action Plan for Child Wasting
in order to establish a common focus for governments, UN agencies and civil society organizations and
guide individual and collective action to accelerate progress towards targets for wasting. One of the
key commitments of World Health Organization (WHO) to this action plan was to update the normative
guidance on the prevention and management of wasting and/or nutritional oedema, also known as
acute malnutrition