United Nations: As many as 36 million people die of direct or indirect effect of hunger every year and 815 million continue to suffer from malnutrition despite the fact that the world produces enough food to feed the entire global population, a new United States report says.

Malnutrition kills a child under 10 every seven seconds and millions are born blind, crippled or mentally impaired because their mothers did not get enough nutrition during pregnancy, it adds.

The report, written by special rapporteur of the Commission of Human Rights, Jean Ziegler, on the right to food security, sees no chance of world fulfilling the commitment made at the 1996 World Food Summit to halve the number of people suffering from malnutrition by 2015.

At this slow rate, it says, the goal would not be reached until 2030.

The situation, Ziegler writes, is even worse than the aggregate statistics suggest. "If the impressive progress made by China is taken out of figures, world hunger has increased since 1996," he adds.

It quotes the International Food Policy Research to say that without taking into consideration China, the number of chronically hungry has gone up by 40 million since 1990.

Despite awareness of the international community towards the problem, the report says India, Bangladesh, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and North Korea are among the countries where the number of malnourished people has increased.

PTI