The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in collaboration with a United Kingdom based philanthropic organization, Children Investment Foundation Fund (CIFF) has promised to support Kaduna State Government in the treatment of 279,542 severe acute malnourished children in the state.
The UNICEF chief of nutrition, Simeon Nanama made the pledge during an assessment visit to Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) site at Primary Health Care, Jaji in Igabi local government area of Kaduna State where he mentioned that SAM children if not treated are 12 times likely to die than their healthy counterparts.
While he stressed the need for increased intervention in the area of treatment of affected children to save them from avoidable deaths; he mentioned that the number of children suffering from SAM had increased from 271,400 in 2017 to 279,542 as at end of April 2018.
He stressed the readiness of CIFF to partner with organizations to improve the survival of children around the world; noting that UNICEF in collaboration with CIFF is working to increase the number of health facilities for the treatment of affected children in Nigeria.
“Our goal is to ensure that treatment is available for majority of children affected with the disease, maintain high quality treatment as well as ensure ownership and investment by local government areas in the programme,”
The Chief of Field Officer at UNICEF Kaduna, Dr Zakari Adam commended the state’s commitment in implementing nutrition policies and interventions; particularly, for mobilizing domestic resources for financing nutrition interventions especially procurement of Ready to use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) used for the treatment of SAM.
He disclosed that CIFF have been working together with UNICEF to scale up access to SAM treatment in Nigeria since 2014 and had so far spent about 60million U.S. dollars, while he urged the state government to increase its funding level to make RUTF available so as to sustain Community Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) services. “Partners’ funding alone cannot sustain the programme,” he noted.
In her remark, the wife of Kaduna state governor and Chairperson of Kaduna State Emergency Nutrition Action Plan (KADENAP), Hajiya Ummi El-Rufai thanked UNICEF and CIFF for the support; explaining that there are 28 Severe Acute Malnourished treatment facilities in five local government areas of the state while the remaining 18LGAs are yet to have such facilities.
She further explained that about 17,981 malnourished children were admitted in the facilities out of which 80percent were successfully cured using RUTF. According to her, the sum of N750million has been spent between 2016 and 2017 to treat affected children.
The team which paid a courtesy visit to Governor Nasir El-Rufai after the assessment advocated for release of more funds to fight malnutrition in the state.
