Delta Worst Hit by Malnutrition in South-south

Omon-Julius Onabu in Asaba

Delta State has the most worrisome incidence of acute malnutrition in children in the South-south geopolitical zone of Nigeria, a recent survey indices have revealed.

The startling revelation came to fore at a day Policy Dialogue with Delta State Executive Council, State House of Assembly and other stakeholders at the Government House Asaba thursday.

The event was organised by UNICEF Nigeria in collaboration with the Delta State Government with the theme, “Prioritizing Investment in Maternal and Child Nutrition: Key to Sustainable Development in Delta State.”

In reference to recent nutritional and health surveys in his presentation on the imperative of multidimensional approach to tackling the serious maternal and child malnutrition in Nigeria and the need to scale-up nutrition, Dr Chris Isokpunwu of the Federal Ministry of Health noted that 40,000 children in the state suffer from acute malnutrition, that is one in every five children is malnourished.

In his remarks at the opening ceremony, Delta State Governor, Dr Ifeanyi Okowa, described the statistical figures on malnutrition as indeed worrisome and a call to duty for the state government, expressing his avowed commitment to the fight against malnutrition in the state.

He urged the state ministry of health and related departments and agencies to leverage on the background provided by the over 400 health centres and more than 60 general hospitals in the state for effective advocacy on child and maternal nutrition in the state.

Okowa urged state ministries, including health, agriculture, women affairs and community development, water resources and environment as well as other relevant bodies in the state to work with UNICEF and other stakeholders to reverse the disturbing child nutritional status of the state.

The governor attributed most of the health and social challenges in Nigeria to policy inconsistencies, urging the Federal Government to adopt proper planning policies that paired economic plan with demographic or population programme.

Okowa “As a country, we will be planning wrongly if our plans does not go in line with our population, such plans will be problematic,” he said, adding, “for us to have healthy families, birth spacing is very important, we must keep the number of our families within the range we can cater for.
“A lot of persons are ignorant of what it takes to bring up a child; and, that is a major problem we need to address. We must improve on our enlightenment programme through effective advocacy on the need for child spacing and reducing the size of the family through deliberate plan.”

“Issue of poverty can also be linked to the effects of recession, but, there is need for collaboration with the local government councils for effective advocacy aimed at addressing ignorance.”