Nearly 2 million kids could die amid shortage of therapeutic food, UN says

Nearly two million children are at a deadly risk because of a shortage of a therapeutic food used to treat malnutrition, the Un i ted Nations Children's Fund warned on Tuesday.

Stockpiles of ready-to-use therapeutic food, a dense, high-nutrition product specially designed to help children gain weight quickly, are running dangerously low or have run out in Mali, Nigeria, Niger and Chad, according to the U.N. agency .

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Prolonged droughts, floods, and "erratic rainfall" in countries across the Sahel region, which stretches across northern-central Africa from Senegal to Eritrea, have spiked food prices and triggered food shortages, putting millions of children in the area at severe risk of acute malnutrition, the agency said.

Ready-to-use-therapeutic food is a mix of powdered milk, peanuts, butter, vegetable oil, and sugar, with added vitamins and minerals. It keeps for two years in a warehouse and can be eaten straight out of the package, according to UNICEF.

In Mali, where UNICEF estimates more than 300,000 children under five could suffer from severe malnutrition this year, supplies of the food treatment could run out by the end of July.

Chad's stockpiles could run out by the end of the month, putting the 500,000 severely malnourished children under five in the country in catastrophic danger, UNICEF said. The country's government declared a food and nutrition emergency in February.

In eight other hard-hit countries, a funding shortage may prevent malnourished children from receiving treatment, it said. Cameroon, Pakistan, Sudan , Madagascar, South Sudan, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda could run out of the food by the middle of next year.

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"Urgent action is needed now to save the lives of nearly two million children who are fighting this silent killer,” Victor Aguayo , UNICEF's director of child nutrition and development, said.

UNICEF urgently called for $165 million to continue to fund the treatment and stock up on therapeutic food.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Nearly 2 million kids could die amid shortage of therapeutic food, UN says