‘2.5 million Northern children endangered by malnutrition’

No fewer than 2.5 million children in the Northern part of the country face the danger of untimely death as a result of lack in nutritious foods.

This was contained in a communique issued at the end of a one-day retreat organised for chairmen of some committees in the Katsina State House of Assembly, civil servants and civil society organisations on prevention and treatment of Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) as a child right at the Three Star Hotel, Dutse, Jigawa State.

The organisers were the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC)

The communiqué, signed by all the chairmen of the committees in attendance, stated that the retreat was aimed at enlightening members of relevant committees on SAM issues and how they could ensure that SAM is recognised as a human rights issue and funding for it be prioritised through appropriate legislative process.

According to the communiqué, globally, Nigeria remained second and the highest country in Africa with malnutrition-related burdens reducing the nation’s GDP by eight per cent.

This is also said to impede physical growth and cognitive development of a child, with no fewer than 2.5 million children affected in Northern Nigeria alone.

The communique further stated that the impacts of malnutrition include monumental economic and productivity losses, irreparable potential loss, increased susceptibility to communicable diseases and other infections.

In the communiqué, the participants observed that the misuse of Read To-Use Triepied Food (RUTF) at household level constitutes a major challenge to addressing SAM and that inadequate trained nutritionists at Primary Health Care level results in inefficient service delivery and inadequate orientation on SAM management of some health workers.

They, therefore, recommended that the state government should embrace coordinated multi-sectoral approach to financing nutrition “through constructive synergy and integrated nutrition budgetary allocation and service delivery across the line Ministries, Departments and Agencies.”

“Government should begin immediate domestication of the National Policy on Food and Nutrition and strategic plan of action to guide identification and implementation of nutrition intervention. It must encourage policy stability for enhanced agricultural productivity to enable availability, affordability and accessibility of locally-produced nutritious foods and immediate review of existing nutrition activities.”

Other recommendations include timely release of fund, cash-backing and judicious utilisation of such funds to ensure sustained nutrition intervention in the state, with strengthened oversight by the State House of Assembly on existing funds and policies.

They also asked for increased recruitment of nutritionists “to effectively administer nutrition care,” as well as adequate training and retraining programmes for healthcare workers at Primary Healthcare centres to ensure efficient service delivery on nutrition care at grassroots level.