A/HRC/22/31 Health workers should deliver these interventions within communities and provide parents and caregivers with information on how to promote their child’s health and survival. 36. Ensuring access to the full schedule of childhood immunizations recommended by WHO is critical to the prevention of an expanding array of childhood illnesses as well as to diseases that may emerge later in life. 37. Access to insecticide-treated nets and appropriate treatment for malaria, in accordance with WHO guidelines, can improve the likelihood of child survival in malaria endemic areas. Access to a sufficient supply of safe, potable water is essential for reducing child morbidity and mortality. Hand-washing with soap, access to improved sanitation facilities and anthelminthics can help reduce diarrhoea and pneumonia, as well as other infectious and parasitic diseases. 38. Measures should be taken to address the dangers and risks of local environmental pollution for child health, such as by reducing emissions from smoke producing cooking facilities, thereby reducing pneumonia and other respiratory infections, and by addressing climate change, which contributes to the infectious disease burden and exacerbates health inequalities. 39. Children affected by HIV require additional attention to ensure their healthy survival and development, continued access to care and support from appropriate adults, and protection of their rights, including to education, health and other social services, and inheritance. C. Malnutrition 40. Undernutrition, micronutrient deficiency and overnutrition are different dimensions of malnutrition that must be addressed together through a life-course approach.5 Undernutrition is the underlying cause of the death of 2.6 million children every year, one third of the global total of children’s deaths. In addition, the growth of one in four of the world’s children is stunted; in developing countries, this figure is as high as one in three. 6 41. In addition to the burden of disease and stunting attributable to undernutrition, overnutrition is becoming an increasingly important concern. In 2010, there were an estimated 42 million children under the age of 5 who were overweight, and these rates continue to rise owing to a lack of physical activity and unhealthy diets.7 42. The submissions received confirm the above finding, showing that this dual burden is beginning to affect developed and non-developed countries in equal measure. The replies received also reported on worrying trends concerning the stigmatization of obese children by medical personnel. 43. Ensuring adequate nutrition for infants and young children plays a key role. A number of measures could be taken to address child malnutrition, such as by providing parents with advice and food and nutritional supplements, promoting access to an adequate and culturally acceptable supply of safe food, and providing complementary and emergency food programmes where acute malnutrition threatens or is prevalent. Some caution against over-reliance on the use of supplements, therapeutic foods, fortificants and infant formulas, 5 6 7 A/HRC/19/59. Save the Children, A Life free from Hunger, 2012. WHO, Population-based prevention strategies for childhood obesity: report of a WHO forum and technical meeting, Geneva, 15-17 December 2009. Available from www.who.int/dietphysicalactivity/childhood/child-obesity-eng.pdf. 9