cameroon: Malnutrition, Disease Stunt Children's Growth

Cameroon is not known for the famine and drought that devastate much of Africa each year. Blessed with abundant rainfall, it is part of the equatorial forest where surplus food is always produced. The problem, as Jacques Boyer, coordinator of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Cameroon, recently found out has to do with the lack of balanced diet and poverty. ''Some 54.1 percent of Cameroon's children have stunted growth because of malnutrition,'' he said.