The Philippine government will be giving nutritional aid for babies, toddlers, and pregnant women at risk of malnutrition, Malacañang announced on Friday, October 2.

Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque said this was the decision of the government’s Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) during their meeting that day.

“The IATF approved a resolution providing for a dietary supplementation program for all kids from 6 to 23 months and nutritionally at-risk pregnant women,” he said in Filipino during a virtual press briefing.

The aid will come in the form of either cash or “food packs,” he added.

He did not state how much cash each family with a toddler or pregnant woman would receive. Roque, who is also task force spokesman, said all children, regardless of their family’s income, would receive the assistance.

Roque called the initiative a “partial solution to the problem of hunger during this pandemic.”

“This forms part of improving the health care of the citizens and a means to eliminating hunger which has been aggravated by the pandemic,” he said in a statement.

The decision comes days after a Social Weather Stations survey found that 7.6 million Filipino households experienced involuntary hunger in the last 3 months.

This is the highest hunger incidence in the country since 2014. – Rappler.com