MANILA – The Inter-Agency Task Force on Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) has approved the release of cash and food packs for children under two years old and pregnant women lacking proper nutrition.
Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said on Friday that the “dietary supplementation program” will cover children aged 6 to 23 months and “nutritionally at-risk” pregnant women.
“Ito po’y ipamimigay sa pamamagitan ng cash o ‘di naman po kaya’y food pack,” Roque said over at Laging Handa virtual press conference.
“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 added.
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic in the country has prompted varying degrees of lockdowns since March leaving millions of Filipinos jobless and dragged the economy into recession.
Based on the latest Social Weather Stations survey, a record-high of 30.7 percent of Filipino families or an estimated 7.6 million households experienced involuntary hunger due to lack of food at least once in the past three months./PN
