From July 26 until today, the 28th, a pre-summit of the UN Food Systems Summit is being held in Italy, where global issues related to food and nutrition are being discussed. The Standing Together for Nutrition Consortium (ST4N) is a multidisciplinary consortium of experts in nutrition, economics, and food and health systems. Here, we summarize two ST4N papers published in Nature Food on the impact of COVID-19 on nutrition in low- and middle-income countries. 

In the first paper, Osendarp et al. argue that the economic crisis and food and health system disruptions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic could exacerbate undernutrition in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), and develop pessimistic, moderate, and optimistic scenarios for the period 2020-2022, using three modeling tools  to estimate the impact of pandemic disruption in 118 LMICs. In a moderate scenario, it was projected that by 2022, COVID-19-related disruption could result in an additional 9.3 million wasted children, 2.6 million stunted children, 168,000 additional child deaths, 2.1 million cases of maternal anemia, and 2.1 million children born to mothers with a low BMI. In a pessimistic scenario on the other hand, the projection showed 13.6 million cases of wasted children and 3.6 million cases of stunting. Future productivity losses due to stunting and infant mortality were estimated to be worth $29.7 billion. An additional $1.2 billion per year in nutrition interventions will be needed to mitigate these impacts. The paper concluded that governments and donors need to keep nutrition a priority, support resilient systems, and ensure the efficient use of new and existing resources.

The paper by Laborde et al. also discussed the impact on healthy and nutrient-adequate diets. Even before COVID-19, it was estimated that 3 billion people did not have access to a healthy diet, and among them, 2.5 billion live in 63 LMICs. In addition to these 3 billion people, the COVID-19 pandemic has shown that 141 million people will not be able to afford healthy food. In these 63 countries, income loss due to the pandemic has widened the gap in availability, with the number of people unable to pay even half the cost of a healthy meal increasing from 43% to 50%.

Lack of access to healthy food can lead to nutrient deficiencies, micronutrient deficiencies, and non-communicable diseases of dietary origin. Increasing the availability of healthy food may be achieved by reducing the price of fresh, nutritious food through nutritional fortification, inclusive economic growth, and by diversifying the food system and increasing productivity.
 

References
Osendarp, S., Akuoku, J.K., Black, R.E. et al. The COVID-19 crisis will exacerbate maternal and child undernutrition and child mortality in low- and middle-income countries. Nat Food 2, 476–484 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-021-00319-4
Laborde, D., Herforth, A., Headey, D. et al. COVID-19 pandemic leads to greater depth of unaffordability of healthy and nutrient-adequate diets in low- and middle-income countries. Nat Food 2, 473–475 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-021-00323-8

Contributor: SHIRATORI Sakiko (Information and Public Relations Office)