Over 2 Million Children Prone To Severe Acute Malnutrition In Kano

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Scaling Up Nutrition in Nigeria, (CS-SUNN), Kano State chapter has alerted that over 2 million children are prone to the threat of Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) stunting and been wasted in Kano State.

Disclosing this, the secretary, CS-SUNN Kano State chapter, Ahmad Tijjani Yau during a one day workshop with the theme “Meeting of Key Gatekeepers on Importance of EBF” held at L and Z, said reports of Multiple Cluster Survey indicates emphasizes on the essence to continue to scale up the fight against malnutrition in the state.

According to him, Kano central senatorial district has the highest number of cases, adding that index reveals that the senatorial zone is the worst hit.

Yau then expresses the grieve that the affected children range between 6 to 23 months, adding that less than 40% of the affected children have access to Minimal Dietary Diversities (MDD).

He stated that, so far in 2019 Dietary Diversity baseline survey have been conducted in some local government areas in Kano with the intent to map out strategies to further curb the menace.

However, Kano State Nutrition Officer (SNO), Halima Musa Yakasai while briefing members of Kano State House of Assembly during a nutrition strategic meeting, she told the lawmakers that investigations have unveiled that 10.8 per cent of children within the age circles of six months to five years are malnourished.

Halima disclosed that “2.8 per cent are severely wasted, 58.8 per cent are stunted and 32.89 per cent are severely stunted.”

According to her, Community Based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) programmes are ongoing in 13 local governments in parts of the state.

“The local governments where CMAM work is ongoing are, Bichi, Dawakin Tofa, Dambatta, Doguwa, Gwarzo, Kano Municipal, Madobi, Nassarawa, Takai, Sumaila, Ungogo, Wudil and we are scaling up with Gabasawa,” Halima said.

Halima disclosed that statistics obtained in the month of July 2020, indicated that 20, 037 malnourished children were admitted into various CMAM facilities in Kano State, stating that out of the disclosed number of those admitted, 3,338 were cured.

Halima bemoans that cultural belief stood tall amongst the challenges that neither encourage nor discourage habits that enhance the threat posed by malnutrition, adding that lack of early release of funds for the implementation of nutrition activities also constitutes part of the challenge.

“We in Kano State ministry of health, we will continue to do our best, we conduct review meetings, on dietary diversification, also we conduct a monthly collection of data to help us monitor and improve on our nutrition programmes,” Halima stated.