Nagpur: Maharashtra witnessed a drop in the number of severe acute malnourished (SAM) children between 2019 and 2021 despite the Covid-19 pandemic.
Woman and Child Development minister Yashomati Thakur in a written answer given in the Maharashtra Legislative council said that there were 95,978 severely acute malnourished children in the state in December 2019 which came down to 89,151 in 2020. The numbers dropped to 81,904 by December 2021, she further claimed.
In the statement the Maharashtra minister said, “The Maharashtra government had carried out a special drive in August, 2021 to identify moderate acute and severe acute malnourished children in the 6-month to the 6-year-old segment. We found 97,876 children in MAM and 16,914 in SAM categories.”
Thakur informed that 1,578 out of 18,914 children were admitted in the nutrition rehabilitation centres as they were suffering critical illness due to malnourishment.
