Medecins Sans Frontières (MSF), yesterday, said its inpatient facilities in the northern part of the country have recorded an extraordinary increase in admission of several malnourished children with life-threatening complications, exceeding last year’s figures by over 100 per cent in some locations.
MSF, popularly known as Doctors Without Borders, noted that the situation is an alarming indication of a premature peak of the lean season and increase in acute malnutrition that accompanies it, typically anticipated in July.
Speaking at the presentation of its National Activity Report 2023 and Q1 Medical Data for 2024 in Abuja, MSF’s Country Representative in Nigeria, Dr Simbia Tirima, stated that the organisation is resorting to treating patients on mattresses laid on the floor because its facilities are full, while children are dying.
He sought immediate action, as more lives hang in the balance.
“Everyone needs to step in to save lives and allow the children of northern Nigeria to grow free from malnutrition and its disastrous long-term, if not fatal, consequences” he said
Trina stressed the need to urgently scale up humanitarian assistance and called upon the Nigerian authorities, international organisations and donors to take immediate action to diagnose and treat malnourished children to prevent associated complications and deaths, besides engaging in sustained, long-term initiatives to mitigate the underlying causes of this urgent problem.
He continued: “We’ve been warning about the worsening malnutrition crisis for the last two years. 2022 and 2023 were already critical, but an even grimmer picture is unfolding in 2024. We can’t keep repeating these catastrophic scenarios year after year. What will it take to make everyone take notice and act?”
In April 2024, MSF’s medical team Maiduguri admitted 1,250 severely malnourished children with complications to the inpatient therapeutic feeding centre, doubling the figure for April 2023. Forced to urgently scale up capacity, by the end of May, the centre accommodated 350 patients, far surpassing the 200 beds initially designated for the peak malnutrition season in July and August.
Also in the Northeast, the MSF-operated facility in Bauchi State’s Kafin Madaki Hospital recorded a significant 188 per cent increase in admission of severely malnourished children during the first three months of 2024 compared to the same period in 2023.
