Options and strategies to reach under-two children through complementary feeding with ARF in the South Asian countries

Most of the ‘malnutrition drama’ is already over by the time a South Asian child is of two years of age [1]. More than half the world’s underweight children live in South Asia [2, 3, 4]. India has about 45 million infants/ toddlers (6-24 months) per annum. As against India’s 45 million under two; Bangladesh would have about 6 million; Nepal about 1 million; and Sri Lanka about 1 million. The target population for complementary foods in just these four South Asian countries is a staggering 53 million per annum.