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Synthesis of Evidence Regarding Indirect Impacts of COVID-19 on Nutrition

As the COVID-19 pandemic was being declared, Maximising the Quality of Scaling Up Nutrition Plus (MQSUN+) supported development of an information note to help countries consider how to protect nutrition during the response, and articulated how to apply the UNICEF framework to the question of how nutrition would be impacted. Then MQSUN+ began collating emerging evidence regarding the possible indirect impacts on nutrition of COVID-19 and the response in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Of particular interest were: (1) nutritional status, including various forms of undernutrition—as well as overweight and obesity—in LMICs; (2) breastfeeding practices; (3) nutrition intervention delivery and coverage; (4) diet, including dietary diversity and dietary practices, particularly amongst women and children; and (5) availability and price of nutritious foodstuffs. Information was collated from UNICEF and other data sources, journal articles, informal sources and online repositories. This synthesis provides the high-level findings.