UN Body calls to tackle noma through right-to-food campaign

An important UN study released this week by the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee, focuses on noma, a terrible disease that can affect the face of malnourished children. Importantly this study links malnutrition, a known cause of noma, with the human right to food and calls for a concerted campaign.

The study also recognises that those who survive noma not only suffer from serious disfigurement and functional impairment, they are also stigmatized, excluded and discriminated against. This is the reality experienced by many of Project Harar’s rural patients. The Human Rights Council notes that reconstructive surgery, most often carried out by volunteer surgeons, gives survivors a rare chance to live without discrimination; a fundamental objective of Project Harar’s work.