Luanda, May 16, 2025 (Lusa) - The rate of chronic malnutrition in children under 5 in Angola is 40%, up two percentage points in eight years, according to figures released on Friday by the National Statistics Institute (INE).
According to the Multiple Indicator and Health Survey 2023-2024, budgeted at US$9.5 million (€8.4 million), in Angola 40% of children under 5 suffer from chronic malnutrition (low height for age), and the percentage is higher in rural areas (51%).
In urban areas, the percentage of children with chronic malnutrition is 31%, according to data from the second edition of the Multiple Indicator and Health Survey (IIMS) presented today in Luanda by the Angolan INE.
Chronic malnutrition is highest in the provinces of Bié (56%), Kwanza Sul (53%), Uíje (48%), Huambo (47%), Huíla (47%), Kwanza Norte (47%) and Malanje (45%). Luanda, the Angolan capital, has the lowest rate in the country at 24%, while at national level the provinces have an average prevalence rate of 29%.
According to the study, chronic malnutrition in Angola will increase from 38% in 2015-2016 (the period in which the first IIMS was carried out) to 40% in 2023-2024. In this period, underweight children increased from 19% to 21% and the percentage of children with acute malnutrition remained at 5%.
Only 3% of children under 5 in Angola are overweight, the survey reads.
With regard to the nutritional status of women in Angola, the survey points out that 20% of women between the ages of 20 and 29 are thin, while 27% are overweight or obese.
"Among adolescent women aged 15-19, 21% are thin, with 5% of them being moderately or severely thin. Eight percent of adolescent women are overweight," says the study.
The Multiple Indicator and Health Survey 2023-2024 also highlights that the infant mortality and under-five mortality rates are now 32 and 52 deaths per 1,000 live births, respectively, for the five-year period prior to the survey.
The neonatal mortality rate went from 24 to 16 deaths per 1,000 live births: "With these levels of mortality, one in every 19 children in Angola does not survive until their fifth birthday," the study notes.
The survey also brings together data on family planning, water, sanitation and hygiene, maternal and neonatal health care, fertility and its determinants and others.
The director general of the Angolan National Statistics Institute (INE), Joel Futi, said on the occasion that the Multiple Indicator and Health Survey 2023-2024 lasted six months, involved 189 officials throughout Angolan territory and cost the state coffers close to US$9.5 million.
"The biggest challenges, post survey, firstly have to do with our political decision-makers, the people who draw up this country's governance policies, because we know that statistical information must serve as a basis for adopting policies," he said, noting that "policies without statistics have no value".
The secretary of state for Health for Angola's Hospital Area, Leonardo Inocêncio, pointed to the importance of the survey, considering that it provides essential information that will serve as a basis for evaluating the National Development Plan (PDN) 2023-2027.
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