MIRAGRODEP projections suggest that even fairly short lockdown measures, combined with severe mobility disruptions and comparatively moderate food systems disruptions, result in most LMICs having an estimated average 7·9% (SD 2·4%) decrease in GNI per capita relative to pre-COVID-19 projections.

MIRAGRODEP projections

This model suggests that decreases in GNI are associated with increases in child wasting. There could be a 14.3% increase in moderate to severe child wasting among children 5 and younger due to COVID-19 in LMICs. This amounts to 6.7 million children, with 57.6% of children coming from south Asia and 21.8 from sub-Saharan Africa.

Microeconomic Projections

When the projected increase in wasting in each country is combined with a projected year average of 25% reduction in coverage of nutrition and health services, we estimate there would be 128605 (ranging from 111 193 to 178510 for best and worst case scenarios) additional deaths in children younger than 5 years during 2020, with an estimated 52% of these deaths in sub-Saharan Africa.

Amount of Additional Deaths

- MIRAGRODEP projections 
- microeconomic model projections 
- amount of additional deaths

Northwestern University

- Impact of COVID-19 on nutrition in LCIM 
- Solutions to malnutrition in LCIM
- Action Plan to address child malnutrition in Covid-19
- Challenges of caring for children in LMICs

Impacts of COVID-19 on childhood malnutrition and nutrition-related mortality

1. Access to nutritious, safe, and affordable diets needs to be safeguarded and promoted as a cornerstone of the response to COVID-19.
2. Invest in improving maternal and child nutrition through pregnancy, infancy, and early childhood
3. Re-activate and scale up services for the early detection and treatment of child wasting
4. Maintain the provision of nutritious and safe school meals for vulnerable children
5. Expand social protection to safeguard access to nutritious diets and essential services

Action Plan to address child malnutrition in Covid-19

- Testing capacity is extremely constrained in many LMICs and scaling up rapid testing is challenging.
- Overcrowded wards are an existing barrier to infection prevention transmission within health facilities in LMICs and could enhance SARS-CoV-2.
- Over half of health facilities in resource limited settings have insufficient oxygen supply and pulse oximetry, and dedicated paediatric intensive care services are rare
- Maintaining regular childhood preventive and curative services through the pandemic is a particular problem in LMICs, due to resource constraints, closure of facilities, limited access to health facilities and insufficient health care workers or drug supplies.


Challenges of caring for children in LMICs

Addressing malnutrition in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) requires the rapid mobilization of domestic and donor resources, especially as national economies reel from COVID-19-related losses. In 2017, the World Bank estimated that \$7 billion per year over 10 years was needed to reach global Sustainable Development Goal nutrition targets; however, these estimates must be revised upward to overcome COVID-19-related setbacks.

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