Malnutrition ravages Gombe kids
Amalnourished two-year-old girl ,Fatima Hussaini, who could pass as a six-month-old baby, sits on the lap of her aunty on queue to collect Ready to Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) supplements at a Community Management for Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) Centre in Late Yakubu Sale Primary Healthcare Centre, Kumbiya-Kumbiya quarters of Gombe metropolis.
Though born healthy, Fatima was weaned at 12 months and started facing malnourishment after her parents parted ways, her aunty said.
Fatima’s father could hardly provide daily meals, and as a result, her mother, who was yet to recover from the pains of child birth, felt she was not healthy enough to produce breast milk for the child, hence weaned her prematurely and abandoned her in the house.
Fatima Hussaini is one of the many children under the age of five now facing acute malnutrition in Gombe State.
The state has 11 local government areas with 114 wards, but there are only 15 Community Management for Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) centres in three pilot LGAs of Gombe, Nafada and Dukku.
A visit to one of the centres by our correspondent showed a significant increase in the number of malnourished children, despite the many interventions by the state government and international donor agencies.
It was gathered that on average, at least 20 malnourished children are brought to the health centre daily, and four die before the eight weeks treatment window period.
Most of the cases result from poverty, with many families finding it difficult to feed daily. To worsen matters, some mothers are accused of exchanging the Ready to Use Therapeutic Foods (RUTF) for cash.
A health worker at the centre told Daily Trust that a malnourished child is given seven sachets of RUTF supplements every week for eight weeks. Therefore, to ensure compliance by mothers, return empty sachets of the RUTF supplements must be presented before re-issue every subsequent week.
An International organisation, Save the Children, said intensive awareness campaigns by stakeholders on early weaning is the panacea to reducing malnutrition.
An advocacy officer of the organization in Gombe, Mr. Zaharadden Sabi’u, said early weaning was responsible for 70 per cent of malnourished children at the centre.
He said cultural beliefs regarding abrupt weaning of children and taking infants to live with their grandparents should be discouraged as it causes malnutrition.
“There is a strategy for weaning children. You cannot just cut off breastfeeding on a single day. Weaning has to take some processes like introducing other food supplements during complimentary feeding. By introducing other foods gradually, the child gets weaned without having to undergo some psychologically trying moments.
“Weaning children under 24 months is early and can pose a threat to the health of the child. We must encourage mothers to exclusively breastfeed their children for up to 24 months,” Mr. Sabi’u said.
Available information from the centre showed that last month, 72 malnourished children were admitted, and four died.
A community health officer at the centre, Mrs. Amina Nuhu, said the number of malnourished children at the facility was high considering that patients from neigbouring LGAs also bring their babies.
According to her, lack of exclusive breastfeeding is a major challenge among women who come to the centre.
“The women in rural areas don’t want to breastfeed their children exclusively. That is, breastfeeding children from birth to six months without adding anything like water or food supplements. This is basically our challenge because breast milk helps to prevent children from infections,” she said.
A report released by the Gombe State Nutrition Officer, Malam Suleiman Mamman, said as at December 30, 2016, 13, 059 children (6, 483 boys and 6, 570 girls) aged 6 - 59 months were admitted across the 15 CMAM facilities in the state.
He said 11, 531 were revived, 657 defaulted, 117 unrecovered while 87 died which he said represented 92 per cent cure rate, 6.6 per cent default rate, 1.2 per cent non-recovered and 0.8 per cent death rate.
He stressed the need to disseminate information on the food and nutrition policy which he described as a document that provides the framework for addressing the problems of food and nutrition insecurity in the state.
Malam Mamman said the policy guides the identification, design, and implementation of intervention activities across different relevant sectors.
The nutrition officer disclosed that in order to address the challenges of malnutrition among children, the state government had unfolded a cost plan of action that took a comprehensive approach to address issues related to nutrition.
However, he outlined non-release of nutrition budgets, inadequate budgeting for nutrition programmes and activities as well as poor implementation of the policies as challenges confronting the fight against malnutrition.
He emphasized the need to increase CMAM activities to cover all the 11 LGAs so that children from rural areas will benefit.
Our correspondent gathered that between January and March 2, 2017, 880 malnourished children were admitted in CMAM centers across the three operating LGAs, out of which 1, 221 were cured, 71 defaulted, 27 died and 53 not recovered due to exposure to HIV.