Sources in Sindh's finance department said the ratio of severely-food-insecure-population in the province had increased above 32 per cent in 2008 to 41 per cent in recent months, up from 25 per cent in 2005-06.

According to officials in the provincial planning and development department's poverty alleviation wing, their findings show that the escalating food prices have dealt a serious blow to earlier poverty reduction gains.

Food expenditures comprise on an average 70-80 per cent of the total income of the poor and the hike in prices has severely hurt the household purchasing power, particularly in rural Sindh where health-related expenditures, as a result of malnutrition, continue to add to the worries of the poor, they said.

According to the provincial health department statistics, the share of households unable to meet their medical expenses is estimated at around 60-63 per cent.

In the absence of social protection mechanisms for health and nutrition, the combined effect of spiraling food prices and lack of health care may prove catastrophic for poor households.

No less shocking is the fact that food price crisis has slowed down progress in poverty alleviation by several years, said Ghulam Mustafa Jamro, NRSP regional programme officer in Badin.

He told this scribe that access to healthy food in lower Sindh particularly in the coastal belt was abysmal, which had increased the number of people faced with malnutrition. “Over 80 per cent of people in Thatta and Badin districts are living below the poverty line and are struggling to survive amid lack of basic amenities.”

Shazia Marri, Sindh Information Minister, said as poverty was the major cause of poor access to healthy food, the provincial government had plans to suplement people's income. Some of the programmes were being implemented while others would be initiated in phases shortly, she said.

“Programmes like the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), Benazir Bhutto, Shaheed Youth Development Programme (BBSYDP) and the grant of state land to landless peasants are basically aimed at alleviating poverty, especially in rural areas.”

Although these key poverty reduction programmes were underway, it would surely take time to deliver the desired results, she remarked.

A study of 1,407 households in Dadu and Shahdadkot districts, conducted by an NGO Action Against Hunger (AAH), revealed that nearly 22 per cent of the population in these two districts was suffering due to severe food insecurity, while nearly 78 per cent deaths in most of the districts of Sindh were linked with malnutrition.

Health and Nutrition Specialist of Unicef, Dr Asif Aslam, said “The awful state of food insecurity is prone to exacerbate the rate of malnutrition, particularly among children under-five, which will further escalate the rate of preventable deaths in the province.”

The World Food Programme country spokesman in Pakistan, Amjad Jamal, said that at present about 90 per cent of the population in rural Sindh had a marginal status in terms of food intake or access to healthy food, with 35 per cent of the population being highly food insecure.

“The recent surge in prices of essential food commodities vis-à-vis stagnant or slow growth in wages has worsened people's access to food,” remarked Jamal.

According to the World Health Organisation survey conducted in food insecurity-struck districts of Sindh, the poorest households have substantially reduced their food expenditure by 0.75 per cent for every one per cent increase in food prices. This is bound to hurt their ability to afford even basic health services.

The UN-Inter Agency Assessment Mission in its 'Impact of Food Crisis on Health in Pakistan' says the food insecurity has terribly exacerbated all over Pakistan and critically in Sindh and Balochistan during 2007-08.

According to the report, the total number of household falling in this category was estimated at seven million or about 45 million people in 2008, approximately 15 million in Sindh alone.