Skip to main content

132 children die of malnutrition in Kaduna

                                      Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai
The Kaduna State Nutrition Officer, Hauwa Usman, said on Thursday that no fewer than 132 children have died of severe acute malnutrition out of the 12,858 hospitalised between January and October 2018 in the state.

Mrs Usman, who made this known while giving an update on the nutrition situation in the state at a two-day meeting in Kaduna, also said that 10,604 out of the 12,858 have been cured.

The meeting was organised by Save the Children International (SCI) to support Kaduna State Chapter of the Civil Society Scaling-Up Nutrition in Nigeria (CS-SUNN) to develop two-year Nutrition Advocacy Strategy.
She added that 187 others who have not recovered were undergoing treatment.
“Currently, 11.7 per cent of children under-five years are wasted – suffering from severe acute malnutrition, while 47 per cent are stunted (too short for their age),” she said.

She attributed the high incidence of malnutrition in the state to poor maternal, infant and young child feeding practices which has remained unsatisfactory.
“The Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey, 2017, releveled that the rate of timely breastfeeding initiation is 28.9 per cent, while only 19,7 per cent under-five children were exclusively breastfed.

“Similarly, only 10 children aged six to 23 months were adequately and appropriately fed,” she said.
Also speaking, Silas Ideva, CS-SUNN Coordinator in the state, noted the high burden of malnutrition among children under-five years in the state.

According to him, despite many years of implementing nutrition activities by the state government and partners, results are not so encouraging.

“To address the issue of malnutrition, there is the need for nutrition budget line in all relevant ministry, departments and agencies.

“There is also the need to scale up high impact cost effective nutrition interventions at strategic locations and expedite action on finalising Kaduna State policy on Food and Nutrition.

“The state government also need to have a holistic budget for nutrition specific and nutrition sensitive interventions.”

Yusuf Auta, Deputy Director, Development Aid Coordination in the state Planning and Budget Commission said that N200 million, out of the N300 million allocated for nutrition intervention in the state’s 2018 budget has been cashed backed.

Mr Auta added that the commission is awaiting cash backing of the remaining N100 million for the procurement of Ready to use Therapeutic Food.
He called on civil society organisations in the state to support the government in addressing scourge of malnutrition to give under-five children the chance to celebrate fifth year birthday and beyond.

Earlier, SCI Nutrition Advocacy Adviser, Isa Ibrahim, explained that the objective of the meeting was to support CS-SUNN to develop nutrition advocacy strategy for better outcome.
Mr Ibrahim added that the meeting was also organised to identify barriers and challenges of nutrition intervention in Kaduna state.
 
“We equally want to identify and review target stakeholders, including champions at state level for nutrition intervention and effective implementation of the strategy.
“What we want to at the end of the day is to develop advocacy messages for the implementation of the advocacy strategy,” he said.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

BANDIT GUNRUNNER ARRESTED

  Police in Zaria city arrested Bilyaminu Saidu 33years, a gun runner, bandit & logistics supplier. He was arrested with 4 AK-47 rifles, 344 rounds of live ammunition & one motorcycle. Bilyaminu is an indigene of Shuwaki village in Bakori LGA of Katsina state.

US deports 34 Nigerians over various offences

34 Nigerians were today deported from the United States of America for allegedly committing various offences in the country. The deportees comprising 32 males and two females,arrived the Cargo Wing of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMlA), Lagos at about 2.30 p.m in a chartered Omni Air International aircraft with Registration Number W342AX.  Confirming the deportation, the spokesman of the Lagos Airport Police Command, DSP Joseph Alabi, said the deportees were alleged to have committed criminal offences, with one involved in narcotics while others were alleged to have committed immigration-related offences

7-year-old migrant girl dies of dehydration and exhaustion while in custody of US Border Patrol

                            A 7-year-old girl from Guatemala has died of dehydration and shock after she was taken into Border Patrol custody last week for crossing from Mexico into the United States illegally with her father and a large group of migrants along a remote span of New Mexico desert. The child’s death is likely to intensify scrutiny of detention conditions at Border Patrol stations and CBP facilities that are increasingly overwhelmed by large numbers of families seeking asylum in the United States. According to CBP records, the girl and her father were taken into custody about 10 p.m. on December 6th south of Lordsburg, N.M., as part of a group of 163 people who approached U.S. agents to turn themselves in. More than eight hours later, the child began having seizures at 6:25 a.m., CBP records show. Emergency resp...