The Ministry of Cooperatives, Labour and Social Welfare announced that more than 262,000 children under the age of five who suffer from malnutrition receive free food basket purchase credit, and purchasing will be possible from 12 Mordad. This figure only includes children who have visited health centers since the beginning of the year, and the number of children who have not visited has not been reported.

Based on the civil registration organization’s statistics, the total number of registered births over the past five years has been about 5,120,000. After subtracting mortality rates, the population under five in the country is estimated at nearly five million. That means the welfare ministry’s announced figure covers about 5 percent of this age group—one out of every 19 children.

The number of births over these five years has declined continuously, from 1,117,000 in 1400 to 892,000 in 1404; the lowest figure in the past seven decades.

This same figure of 262,000 was also announced in Bahman 1404, and on the occasion of the month of Ramadan, too. At that time, the share for each child in the income quintiles one through five for three months was set at 3,900,000 tomans, which amounts to about 1,300,000 tomans per month.