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Wasting describes a condition where a child is dangerously thin for their height, typically due to sudden and severe weight loss. It greatly raises the risk of death but can be effectively treated. In 2024, an estimated 42.8 million infants and children under 5 years of age were affected by wasting at any given time, and, of these, 12.2 million were severely wasted. 1 Nutritional oedema is not captured in these estimates, yet there are likely hundreds of thousands of children with this form of malnutrition.2 3