Twenty-six children below the age of five died of malnourishment in Hardap region in the past two years.
The Health Director, Christencia Thataone, announced the statistics during a consultative workshop on Food Security and Malnutrition at Mariental on Thursday.
Five children died at Mariental, four at Rehoboth and one at Aranos between January and December 2010.
Nine children died at Mariental, six at Rehoboth and one at Aranos between January and December 2011.
Four children have died so far this year at Mariental and Rehoboth.
Thataone explained that some causes of malnutrition include poverty, lack of food in house-holds and lack of knowledge on the nutritional value of food for infants.
She encouraged parents to breast-feed their babies longer and to ensure that their children are fed with nutritional food.
The Health and Social Services Ministry fights malnutrition by admitting and feeding underweight children at hospitals until they are healthy.
However, the effort appears not to work as most children fed by hospitals and given back to their families, always return to hospitals, hungry and sick.
The ministry advised that food security should include backyard gardening, joint community efforts to provide food to poor and training of the public on food security.
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