Nutrition surveillance system to be introduced

COlOMBO, Sri Lanka - Each year, about 270,000 children under the age of 5 die on the Chinese mainland, and the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that around 35 percent of these deaths are associated with malnutrition.

Low birth weights and premature delivery are the leading causes of death related to malnutrition, said Xu Zongyu, deputy director of the division of children's health of China's Ministry of Health (MOH), on the sidelines of the ongoing WHO regional meeting in Sri Lanka on Scaling Up Nutrition.

"Most child malnutrition and the deaths resulting from it happen in the underprivileged western areas and countryside," he said.