Misiones: over 200 children dead due to malnourishment in 2010

Misiones: over 200 children dead due to malnourishment in 2010
In a country that produces enough food to feed 500 million people per year. How the hell is this possible



Misiones Province Governor Maurice Closs announced that more than 200 children have died thus far this year in the province due to malnutrition, but defended the "Zero Hunger" administrative project that, he said, has allowed for a 20-percent reduction rate in these types of deaths.

"In the 90's, 33 out of 1000 children died as a result of malnutrition. In 2009, 329 children died and this year, 206 deaths were registered," said Closs.

Closs went on to claim that, in accordance with administrative plans, "there has been a reduction of 20 percent."

The governor praised and defended the plan that detects and assists malnourished and underweight children and said that "we will continue working to reach our maximum potential." Closs threw in another statistic: "In the United States, the rate is at six percent."

In the past few days, authorities in Misiones have come under fire after the death of a two-year-old boy in Apóstoles, Misiones and the death of a 15-month-old baby girl, both malnourished.

The baby had been receiving assistance from the "Zero Hunger" programme.

Closs responded to criticisms: "The boy from Apóstoles did not die from malnutrition, he had a health problem, hydrocephalus. The baby girl, before receiving assistance, didn't even had a national identity document. Social workers took her to the hospital for the first time, and she didn't die because of malnutrition, she didn't die because of the programme, she died because of extreme poverty."

"This programme is necessary and these deaths prove that," he said.

In all of Argentina, deaths due to malnourishment are registered at 13.8 out of 1,000, according to official data