87% poor in Bangladesh in serious food, nutrition crisis amid COVID-19 pandemic: survey

A survey by Khaddo Odhikar Bangladesh has found that 87 percent of low-income people in Bangladesh are facing serious food and nutritional crisis amid the coronavirus outbreak.

The survey, titled ‘Impact of COVID-19 Crisis on Food and Nutrition of Low Income People’, revealed that almost 98 percent low-income people in Bangladesh are severely affected by the respiratory disease that has claimed 2,496 lives since March.

Data collected from 834 low-income people living in urban and rural areas across the country, including indigenous people and 43 percent of women, show that food security in the families has reached a critical stage. Because earning members lost income opportunities over the past few months due to the coronavirus lockdown. The situation has not improved much despite the reopening of businesses on a limited scale.

People from different professions, including rickshaw-pullers, van, scooter and taxi drivers, transport workers, shop owners, vendors, barbers, beauticians, cleaners, domestic helps, brick mill workers, goods transport workers, delivery person and farm workers, took part in the survey, conducted by Nazneen Ahmed, a senior research fellow of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies or BIDS.

The answers to questions from the survey revealed that 5 percent people in low-income families managed a meal per day during the pandemic but 91.6 percent of them were able to manage three meals per day before the crisis began.

The people of Mymensingh and Sylhet are comparatively affected by the food crisis more but the poor in Rangpur suffered most in Bangladesh. The crisis of nutrition is more prevalent in Rajshahi.

The pandemic forced around 7 percent people to switch jobs. Most of them have turned into labourers and farm workers, the survey found.