Nutritional status of Rohingya under-5 children in Jamtoly Rohingya camp

Abstract

Introduction: About one million Rohingya people had fled to Cox’s Bazar Bangladesh after experiencing massive atrocities in their homeland Rakhine state of Myanmar. Rohingya people deprived of adequate food supply, education, and health care; resulting in malnutrition rate was very high among their children. Objective: Aim of this study to assess the nutritional status of 1-60 months, Rohingya children. Method: A total of 470 participants were enrolled by a purposive sampling method from patients attending the hospital. Weight-forheight Z-score was calculated based on the 2006 World Health Organization growth standards guideline. Moderate acute malnutrition and severe acute malnutrition have defined as weight-for-height Z-score between –2 SD to –3 SD and <-3 SD respectively. Result: Out of all, 282 (60.0%) belonged to the age group of <2 years, the mean age was 2.16 years (SD, 1.40) and 251 (53.4%) was male. The prevalence of moderate acute malnutrition and severe acute malnutrition were 25.1% and 18.5% respectively. The prevalence of acute malnutrition was significantly different compared to the sociodemographic factor particularly in age and sex (p-value <0.05). Conclusion: Prevention of malnutrition among the refugee is one of the strategic plans of several types of UN agency and National organizations. Despite these efforts, this problem persists.