MSF Raises the Alarm over Escalating Malnutrition Crisis in Northwest

Michael Olugbode in Abuja

The Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) also known as Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has warned of potential catastrophe due to escalating humanitarian needs in northwestern Nigeria in the coming months.

The MSF in a statement yesterday, explained: “A malnutrition crisis is escalating in northwest Nigeria, prompting international medical organisation Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) to reinforce its activities while warning that the current humanitarian response is insufficient to avert a potential catastrophe in the coming months.”

According to the statement, MSF has opened three new outpatient therapeutic feeding centres, in addition to the 10 inpatient centres and 32 outpatient centres that it already manages across Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara states.

The statement added: “Between January and May this year, MSF teams in northwest Nigeria provided inpatient care to 10,200 severely malnourished children with medical complications and admitted 51,000 children to its outpatient feeding programmes.

“Inpatient admissions were 26 per cent higher than in the same period in 2022 – numbers which were already unprecedently high.

“This year, admissions are expected to continue rising. The ‘lean season’ – the period between harvests when stocks of food run low, which runs from May to August in Nigeria – only began recently, but bed occupancy is already at 100 per cent in several MSF treatment centres.”

 MSF Medical Coordinator Htet Aung Kyi, was quoted in the statement to have said: “The numbers of malnourished children that we are receiving in our facilities are a strong indicator that the further we get into the lean season, the more cases we’ll receive,”

 The statement recalled that Northwest Nigeria has some of the worst health indicators in the country, including escalating levels of violence in recent years which have contributed to turning an alarming malnutrition situation into a full-blown crisis; armed groups which regularly raid towns, loot property and kidnap local people for ransom that have left many residents fleeing their homes for safer areas.

“Others have stayed but are unable to access their farms or places of work due to the worsening insecurity. People in need of medical care face challenges reaching health centres and hospitals because of the risks of travelling on unsafe roads,” it added.

MSF teams lamented, “that children who recover from malnutrition and are discharged home often need to be readmitted later as their families struggle to find enough food to keep them healthy. This keeps children stuck in a spiral of malnutrition from which it is difficult to escape.

“We eat when we have food, but there are days when we go hungry, and sometimes the children have to beg for food,” Sadiya, whose child was treated for malnutrition at MSF’s therapeutic feeding centre in Katsina, said.

According to the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, an estimated 78 per cent of people in northwest Nigeria live below the poverty line. Healthcare is often unaffordable or hard to access, and many children have never been vaccinated against common childhood diseases. A very limited amount of international aid reaches the region. All these factors have contributed to the growing numbers of malnourished children in urgent need of treatment.