Five percent of Armenian children are starving

Thirteen percent of Armenian children under 5 years of age see retardant growth rate, and five percent of all country's children are permanently starving. This was stated by Karine Saribekyan, head of the division for protecting mothers' and children's health at the Ministry of Public Health of Armenia.

As reported by the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent, according to Ms Saribekyan, the height and weight of every sixth child in Armenia in the age of up to five years are substandard for their age. "The main problem is poor nutrition, in particular, lack of proteins," she has stated.

Karine Saribekyan said that now her Ministry is implementing, in cooperation with the UNICEF, a programme of counteracting anaemia, which assumes increase of microelements content in flour, which is present in practically all foodstuffs.

The public health official also said that, apart from the above programme, the UNICEF is engaged in Armenia in a number of other programmes aimed towards overcoming of children's malnutrition; among them: "Encouragement of breast feeding up to the age of six months" and "Parents' Courses".

According to forecasts of IMF (International Monetary Fund) experts, the global crisis became the reason of further increase of poor population. According to Ninke Omes, representative of the IMF's Armenian Office, the level of poverty in Armenia, with account of the global economic crisis, will step up by five and may reach 25 percent.