From: Ahmed Abubakar, Dutse
Over 60 percent of children in Jigawa State, under the age of five may die of acute malnutrition if quick intervention is not offered by the state.
This was according to the executive Secretary Primary Health care Agency, Dr. Kabiru Ibrahim.
Dr. Ibrahim, who made the disclosure, on Wednesday, during an advocacy meeting in Bauchi with the Jigawa State Local Government council’s chairmen for an increase funding for the procurement of routine drugs used in Community Base Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM), warned that the present situation of malnourished children requires an emergency intervention by all stakeholders to avoid a major calamity.
Dr. Ibrahim, who was represented by Director, Primary Health Care, Dr. Shehu Sambo, explained that “over 60 percent of the children in the state were stunted while the number of severe malnourished ones are higher than the said amount”.
Also, United Children Trust Fund (UNICEF) has noted that about 75 percent of children of the state under the CMAN programme are at risk of future growth and progress if quick intervention did not come to them.
The Chief of Field office UNICEF, Bauchi, Dr. Abdullahi KaiKai, said that, “it is obvious that the current contribution from an MoU with donor agencies can no longer cater for the growing number of SAM cases in the state”, he stated.
KaiKai stated that in December 2016 a total number of 74,630 representing over 70% of enrolled children with severe acute malnutrition were enrolled into the programme warning that over 75% of the victims do not have access to the intervention programme.
He warned that, “to ensure better treatment outcomes for the treatment of severe acute malnutrition a lot depends on the management of the immediate and underlying causes of malnutrition”.
He noted however that due to the drastic rise of the dollar to the Naira, initially N24,000 have been remitted monthly by 12 LGAs for the procurement of routine drugs for the management of SAM at the exchange rate of N160 to the U.S Dollar adding that with the recession the prices have tripled which has resulted in the treatment of fewer children with infection on the CMAN programme.