NAIROBI: Five children around the world die every minute because of chronic malnutrition, according to the report that also says that almost half a billion children are at the risk of permanent damage over the next 15 years.

The Save the Children report said the deaths of 2 million children each year could be prevented if malnutrition were better addressed.

The report called chronic malnutrition a largely hidden crisis that affects one in four children globally.

Global hunger has fallen markedly over the last two decades, but the 2011 Global Hunger Index (GHI) found that six countries have higher rates of hunger today than two decades ago. Five of those countries are in Africa. The other is North Korea.

The GHI said that Congo, Burundi, Comoros, Swaziland and Ivory Coast have higher degrees of hunger today than in 1990.

Kuwait, Turkey, Malaysia and Mexico have made the biggest gains against hunger.

Karin Lapping, a senior director of nutrition for Save the Children, said many Asian countries had made strides against hunger because of an explicit focus on reducing chronic malnutrition, but that many African countries had not made the same commitment and had fallen victim to predictable cycles of drought and famine.—AP