Diarrhoea kills 9,500 Afghan children annually: Unicef

Diarrhoea is killing at least 26 children daily across Afghanistan where the total number of dead reaches 9,500 each year, the UN Children's Fund (Unicef) said on Thursday.

"Diarrhoea-related deaths, which now total 9,500, account for around 12 per cent of the 80,000 deaths of children under the age of five that occur annually in Afghanistan," a Unicef statement read.

"Using a toilet and washing your hands is literally a matter of life or death and deaths from diarrhoea are particularly tragic because in most cases they can be easily avoided," Adele Khodr, Unicef representative in Afghanistan, was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency.

According to the finding, the risks associated with diarrhoeal infections were exacerbated in Afghanistan, a country where some 1.2 million children are already malnourished and 41 per cent of children are stunted.

--IANS

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