BY: DAUDA ILIYA, MAIDUGURI
The United Nations Children Fund UNICEF says it is providing life-saving intervention to over fourteen thousand children with moderate and severe acute malnutrition in Mafa Local government area of Borno State.
UNICEF Nutrition Officer Maiduguri Field office Nura Shehu stated this in an interview with newsmen in Mafa town, headquarters of Mafa local government.
According to United Nations, over seven hundred thousand children are at risk of severe acute malnutrition in the three North East states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe.
In a effort to respond to this emergency, Borno state government, UNICEF and other partners have scaled up intervention to deliver life-saving assistance to internally displaced persons and other vulnerable people in newly resettled local governments of the state.
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At Government Girls Arabic Secondary school Mafa camp which has a population of thirty three thousand IDPs, health workers are making effort to stabilise children under five suffering from acute malnutrition without medical complications.
A medical worker in one of the health facility at the camp, Hadiza Maina said more that twenty children with moderate and severe acute malnutrition are admitted daily in the center.
She however confirmed that no death was recorded in relation to malnutrition, noting that many children are recovering from the ailment.
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UNICEF Officer in charge of nutrition, assessment and surveillance Nura Shehu said based on survey conducted, the Global Acute Malnutrition GAM rate for Mafa has reduced from 14.3 to 11.3 indicating that cases of malnutrition are on the decrease.
“We are trying to make sure all the children who are acutely malnourished and women of child bearing age are attended to, get the required attention in order to reduce the cases to the barest minimum ” Shehu remarked.
Some nursing mothers at the camp, Hadiza Ahmodu and Asma’u Aliyu called on government and development partners to provide more ready-to-use therapeutic food RUTF because of the number of children suffering from malnutrition in the camp.
“My eight months old daughter is suffering from malnutrition but thank God she is stabilising, before now the therapeutic food is not readily available, however there is great improvement in recent times” Hadiza Ahmodu.
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“It has not been easy managing a child with malnutrition, we spent about three weeks coming to this facility but she has nowp stabilised”. Asma’u Aliyu
Radio Nigeria’s Dauda Iliya reporting from Maiduguri, the state capital said that the United Nations Children Agency with support of UN Central Emergency Response Fund and European Civil Protection has rehablitated three boreholes to provide Water and Sanitation services to over thirty thousand IDPs in the town.
The United Nations Children Fund WASH specialists Lonis Salihu said the Agency is considering to uptimise the water facilities to cover inhabitants of the camp and equally address the sanitation needs to avert outbreak of cholera and other waterborne diseases.