An estimated 14 million people in southern Africa face serious health problems because of food shortages, health ministers from ten nations in the region were told today.
As the World Summit on Sustainable Development began today in South Africa, a three-day meeting organised by the World Health Organization (WHO) in the Zimbabwean capital of Harare was told that diseases caused by food shortages put the lives of 2.3 million children under the age of five at risk.
WHO regional director for Africa Ebrahim Samba said: "Under-nutrition makes people more susceptible to disease and existing health services are often unable to take on the added burden".
Without urgent measures to protect the most vulnerable, at least 300,000 people could die of hunger and disease in the next six months, according to WHO statistics.
Southern Africa already has the world's highest incidence of HIV. Malnutrition causes the disease to thrive as people are weakened by hunger.
Angola, Lesotho, Malawi, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe are suffering from severe food shortages caused by drought, conflicts and poor government policies.
Other nations attending the meeting are Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique, and South Africa.
AFP