The statistics and analyses presented on the UNICEF data website pre-date the COVID-19 pandemic. Even without the added impact of the pandemic, they already make clear that the world is not on track to meet Sustainable Development Goal 2 to end hunger and all forms of malnutrition.

Today, more vulnerable children are becoming malnourished due to the deteriorating quality of their diets and the multiple shocks created by the pandemic and its containment measures. Efforts to mitigate the transmission of COVID-19 are disrupting food systems, upending health and nutrition services, devastating livelihoods, and threatening food security. Recent estimates indicate that in addition to the 690 million undernourished people in 2019, at least another 83 million people, and possibly as many as 132 million, may go hungry in 2020.1 As of July 2020, an estimated 370 million children are missing school meals. 2 With these added shocks, children’s dietary quantity and quality are expected to deteriorate below the already poor situation that existed pre-COVID-19, when only 29 per cent of children aged 6 to 23 months were fed a minimally diverse diet and only 53 per cent received the minimum meal frequency.

In July 2020, UNICEF, with the Food and Agricultural Organization, the World Food Programme and the World Health Organization issued a call to action in The Lancet,3 warning of the pandemic’s potential to worsen the pre-existing crisis of malnutrition and tip an additional 6.7 million children over the edge to become wasted during its first year. 2 This is in addition to the 47 million children affected by wasting and 144 million affected by stunting in 2019 before the pandemic, according to the 2020 Joint Malnutrition Estimates.
Malnourished children have weakened immune systems and may face a greater risk of dying from COVID-19. At the same time, it may be more difficult for these children to access the treatment and care they need to survive and thrive. UNICEF country offices reported a 30 per cent decline in overall coverage of services to improve nutrition outcomes for women and children in the early months of the pandemic, and alarming reductions of 75 to 100 per cent under lockdown contexts.

Coverage of other essential nutrition services for children and women may also be affected as a result of COVID-19 transmission mitigation efforts. For example, it was recommended to suspend mass campaigns for vitamin A supplementation in the first months of the pandemic, which may affect coverage in 2020. However, as part of The Lancet five-point call to action in July, UNICEF and partners recommend that services for the early detection and treatment of child wasting be re-activated, and that preventive services, such as vitamin A supplementation, micronutrient supplementation for pregnant and breastfeeding women be maintained and scaled-up, while minimizing risks.

Source- https://data.unicef.org/topic/nutrition/child-nutrition-and-covid-19/#status

Stunting has declined steadily since 2000 – but faster progress is needed to reach the 2030 target. Wasting persists at alarming rates and overweight will require a reversal in trajectory if the 2030 target is to be achieved

Nearly half of all deaths in children under 5 are attributable to undernutrition; undernutrition puts children at greater risk of dying from common infections, increases the frequency and severity of such infections, and delays recovery

Child malnutrition estimates for the indicators stunting, wasting, overweight and underweight describe the magnitude and patterns of under- and overnutrition. UNICEF-WHO-WB Joint Child Malnutrition Estimates inter-agency group updates regularly the global and regional estimates in prevalence and numbers for each indicator.

In 2020, globally, 149.2 million children under the age of 5 years of age were stunted, 45.4 million wasted, and 38.9 million overweight.

Source- https://data.unicef.org/topic/nutrition/child-nutrition-and-covid-19/#status
https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/themes/topics/joint-child-malnutrition-estimates-unicef-who-wb

About TB

Top findings and messages in the 2021 report

The COVID-19 pandemic has reversed years of progress in providing essential TB services and reducing TB diseaseburden. Global TB targets are mostly off-track, although there are some country and regional success stories.The most obvious impact is a large global drop in the number of people newly diagnosed with TB and reported.This fell from 7.1 million in 2019 to 5.8 million in 2020, an 18% decline back to the level of 2012 and far short of theapproximately 10 million people who developed TB in 2020. 16 countries accounted for 93% of this reduction, withIndia, Indonesia and the Philippines the worst affected. Provisional data up to June 2021 show ongoing shortfalls.Reduced access to TB diagnosis and treatment has resulted in an increase in TB deaths. Best estimates for 2020are 1.3 million TB deaths among HIV-negative people (up from 1.2 million in 2019) and an additional 214 000 amongHIV-positive people (up from 209 000 in 2019), with the combined total back to the level of 2017. Declines in TBincidence (the number of people developing TB each year) achieved in previous years have slowed almost to a halt.These impacts are forecast to be much worse in 2021 and 2022.

Other impacts include reductions between 2019 and 2020 in the number of people provided with treatment fordrug-resistant TB (-15%, from 177 100 to 150 359, about 1 in 3 of those in need) and TB preventive treatment (-21%,from 3.6 million to 2.8 million), and a fall in global spending on TB diagnostic, treatment and prevention services(from US$ 5.8 billion to US$ 5.3 billion, less than half of what is needed).Actions to mitigate and reverse these impacts are urgently required. The immediate priority is to restore access toand provision of essential TB services such that levels of TB case detection and treatment can recover to at least2019 levels, especially in the most badly-affected countries.

Global TB Report 2021
https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240037021?utm_source=Union+Marketing&utm_campaign=2cb92138b6-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_02_10_12_12_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_ef9b3d9298-2cb92138b6-249847408