Due to poverty, parents’ lack of nutritional knowledge, or the lack of medical facilities in remote areas, many malnourished children suffer in silence, hidden from view, with no means or ability to seek help.
Apart from setting up clinics, supporting hospitals and distributing emergency food, World Vision actively reaches out to impoverished communities to identify vulnerable children suffering from malnutrition, thereby providing them with timely nutritional treatment.
By measuring the MUAC of children aged between six months and five years, we can quickly identify those suffering from severe or moderate malnutrition, ensuring they receive the necessary treatment in a timely manner:
紅色＝Severe malnutrition (MUAC ≤11.5cm)
Do you know just how thin an arm of a 10cm circumference is? Try making an ‘OK’ gesture with your hand, and the circumference is roughly 10cm. The arms of severely malnourished children are about that thin.
World Vision not only actively seeks out malnourished children, but also trains parents and community members to use the MUAC tape correctly, enabling them to monitor their children’s health themselves on a regular basis.
The gap between the red and green marks on the MUAC tape is about 2cm, which is roughly the width of an adult’s thumb. This mere 2cm, however, could be the difference between life and death.
Children suffering from severe malnutrition face an extremely high risk of death, as their immune systems are severely weakened, to an extent that even a minor infection can easily escalate into serious, life-threatening complications.
Furthermore, after enduring prolonged hunger, the body undergoes significant changes. If the feeding of the child is not careful enough, it can cause a rapid shift in the body's electrolyte balance, triggering fatal complications with extremely serious consequences.
In cases of severe malnutrition, eating without proper medical supervision can lead to life-threatening complications such as respiratory failure and rhabdomyolysis. Therefore, nutritional intake must be carefully controlled by healthcare professionals, who must also provide close monitoring and treatment.
A distance of 2cm may be the space between our fingertips, but for severely malnourished children, it is a matter of life and death—an increase of just 2cm in their arm circumference could save them from the brink of death.
In order to save more starving children from the brink of death, World Vision has been sparing no effort in actively seeking them out, ensuring that they receive timely treatment so that they can regain their health and smiles. Hortense, a girl from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is one such child.
At the age of two, Hortense, who lived with her grandmother, was forced to flee her home due to conflict. The arduous journey and the loss of livelihood and food exacerbated her malnutrition. Although her grandmother went from door to door begging, trying to secure even the smallest amount of food for her granddaughter, she was unable to prevent her condition from deteriorating into severe acute malnutrition.
Fortunately, a World Vision nutritionist identified Hortense’s condition in time.
Acting on her professional instincts, the nutritionist realised Hortense’s life was in immediate danger and immediately transferred her to a hospital supported by World Vision, where she received emergency nutritional treatment in the intensive care unit. Once Hortense was out of danger, she was transferred to a health clinic, also supported by World Vision, to continue her treatment.
At first glance, two-year-old Hortense might appear to be a chubby baby, but in fact it is oedema caused by severe acute malnutrition, indicating that her body is in a state of kwashiorkor, a form of malnutrition that leaves her extremely vulnerable to death from organ failure or infection.
A World Vision staff member visits four-year-old Hortense and is deeply moved to see how she, who was once on the brink of death, has regained her health and become the cheerful child she is today. When we protect vulnerable children, we keep hope alive.
"If you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday."