The launch, done together with the Ministry of Health and UNICEF in Bhutan, coincides with UNICEF’s new global child nutrition report, which finds that overweight and obesity are rising fast among children, including in Bhutan.
With each mother who learns to cook a new, nutritious meal, and each spoonful of semolina porridge lovingly fed to a child, the cycle of poverty and poor health begins to break.
Using self-reported questionnaires, the survey assessed aspects such as alcohol and drug use, eating habits, physical activity levels, psychosocial wellbeing, injuries, exposure to violence and skipping meals due to food insufficiency.
Combined, malaria and malnutrition constitute a “double health burden” that traps the most vulnerable – especially children under five years of age – in a deadly cycle.
In 2023 alone, roughly 260,000 women worldwide died during or shortly after childbirth, with 22 per cent (about 58,000 maternal deaths) occurring in the Asia-Pacific – many of which were preventable with timely midwife-led care.
The World Health Organization on Monday announced Nepal has eliminated rubella as a public health problem, a remarkable achievement for a country making concerted efforts to protect its people from vaccine preventable diseases.
Terming forced religious conversion and forced marriage of Christian and Hindu minor girls to older Muslim men as the most concerning issue, the report notes that there are few legal options available to the victims.
Experts advocate treating care as essential social infrastructure. Expanding services, redistributing unpaid work through policy, and challenging norms that sideline educated women could unlock significant gains.
This 2026 event arrives after earlier haor region floods earlier in the year, underscoring recurring pressures. Migration to urban centres and climate adaptation efforts remain critical long-term challenges.
Experts advocate treating care as essential social infrastructure. Expanding services, redistributing unpaid work through policy, and challenging norms that sideline educated women could unlock significant gains.