Multa Fidrus, Tangerang – Eighteen-month-old Citra stares vacantly up at the ceiling of her parents' small house in Dadap village in Serpong, Tangerang. The malnourished child was sickly at birth.

"I don't have the money to take her to hospital for treatment," said her father Nurhasan, who is a farmer.

In February, Citra was admitted to Tangerang General Hospital, where she stayed for a week before being transferred to Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital in Jakarta for specialist treatment.

Most children of her age weigh about 15 kilograms, while Citra weighs just over five.

The head of Serpong Community Health Center, Khow Loanita, said the center was supplying the family with enriched food for Citra. "That's all we can do," she said Friday.

Three siblings of another Tangerang family are also malnourished. The father, Wasito, who is a dockhand at Tanjung Priok Port, North Jakarta, cannot afford to take his children to hospital.

Four-year-old Salsabila, two-year-old Vita and 11-month-old Rifki are being treated at home. "This is the first case in Serpong of a family with three malnourished children," Loanita said.

She said that despite malnutrition cases in the district dropping from 37 in February to 22 in March, the health center was struggling to treat some of the children because they also had tuberculosis. "They have been taking food supplements for six months, but we see no progress," she said.

Each child receives two liters of milk and four packets of enriched biscuits a month.

Data from the regency's health agency shows that 1,871 children under the age of five – mostly from areas along the north coast, such as Teluk Naga and Rajeg districts – are malnourished.

Eleven-month-old Suharto and 17-month-old Andriyansah from Legok and Balaraja districts respectively died last week from malnutrition-related illnesses.

The head of Tangerang Health Agency, Heni Harianto, said their condition was mainly triggered by poverty caused by unemployment or harvest failure.

Dozens of factories in the regency laid off thousands of workers after last year's fuel price increases. Farmers in the regency's north have been struggling since pests attacked thousands of hectares of rice fields last year.