Malnutrition in northwest Nigeria at catastrophic level – MSF | Tellwell Newspaper
Tellwell Newspaper, Abuja – Nigeria:
The rate of malnutrition among infants in northwest Nigeria has reached alarmingly catastrophic proportion which calls for urgent international humanitarian intervention, French medical charity said on Tuesday.
In a statement obtained by Tellwell Newspaper, Medicine Sans Frontières (MSF) called on the global humanitarian community under the United Nations to prioritize nutrition response in the violence-torn region which is facing severe malnutrition among children under-fives.
According to the medical charity, it has seen an astronomical rise in malnutrition cases since the beginning of this year in five states in the northwest, comprising
Kano, Zamfara, Katsina, Sokoto and Kebbi.
From January, MSF medical teams alongside Nigerian health officials have treated around 100,000 children suffering from acute malnutrition in its 34 centres across the five states where around 17,000 worst affected children were hospitalized.
MSF attributed the alarming situation to several factors.
“With increased insecurity, climate change and global inflation of food prices as a fallout of COVID-19 epidemic, we can only fear a deterioration of the situation,” said Dr. Simba Tirima, MSF representative in Nigeria.
“Nigerian authourities must be supported to manage a crisis of such magnitude. This involves emergency humanitarian funding for organizations so that they can act immediately and to include the north-west in the United Nations humanitarian response plan for 2023,” Tirima said.
MSF recorded a 64 percent increase in the number of registered severely malnourished children treated in its therapeutic centres in Zamfara state which has been worst affected by violence and banditry, compared to the same period last year.
Even in areas less affected by insecurity, an MSF nutritional survey also underlined the severity of the crisis. In the Mashi area in Katsina state, MSF noted a rate of global acute malnutrition of 27.4 percent and a rate of severe acute malnutrition of 7.1 percent.
“These rates are indicators of critical urgency,” the statement noted.
The medical charity lamented that the United Nations humanitarian response focuses on the plight of northeastern Nigeria, excluding the northwest.
It further expressed concern that unlike MSF, whose resources are essentially of private origin, many organizations are unable to respond to the acute needs of the northwest because their financing depends on planned intervention for the northeast.
“There is a growing awareness at the United Nations, donors and other actors of the extent of the crisis in the northwest and it is now necessary to act,” explained Froukje Pelsma,
MSF head of mission in Nigeria.
Pelsma said it was necessary that northwest Nigeria be included in the 2023 humanitarian response plan for Nigeria being developed, “as it is a key element for mobilizing necessary resources for treating these thousands of children.”
