Health
MSF raises alarm over escalating malnutrition crisis in northwest
MSF raises alarm over escalating malnutrition crisis in northwest
By: Michael Mike
Médecins Sans Frontières also know as Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has warned of potential catastrophe due to escalating humanitarian needs in Northwest Nigeria in the coming months.
The MSF in a statement on Tuesday said: “A malnutrition crisis is escalating in northwest Nigeria, prompting international medical organisation Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) to reinforce its activities while warning that the current humanitarian response is insufficient to avert a potential catastrophe in the coming months.”
According to the statement, MSF has opened three new outpatient therapeutic feeding centres, in addition to the 10 inpatient centres and 32 outpatient centres that it already manages across Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara states.
The statement said: “Between January and May this year, MSF teams in northwest Nigeria provided inpatient care to 10,200 severely malnourished children with medical complications and admitted 51,000 children to its outpatient feeding programmes. Inpatient admissions were 26 per cent higher than in the same period in 2022 – numbers which were already unprecedently high.
“This year, admissions are expected to continue rising. The ‘lean season’ – the period between harvests when stocks of food run low, which runs from May to August in Nigeria – only began recently, but bed occupancy is already at 100 per cent in several MSF treatment centres.”
MSF medical coordinator Htet Aung Kyi, was quoted in the statement to have said:
“The numbers of malnourished children that we are receiving in our facilities are a strong indicator that the further we get into the lean season, the more cases we’ll receive,”
The statement recalled that Northwest Nigeria has some of the worst health indicators in the country, including escalating levels of violence in recent years which have contributed to turning an alarming malnutrition situation into a full-blown crisis; armed groups which regularly raid towns, loot property and kidnap local people for ransom that have left many residents fleeing their homes for safer areas.
Others have stayed but are unable to access their farms or places of work due to the worsening insecurity. People in need of medical care face challenges reaching health centres and hospitals because of the risks of travelling on unsafe roads.
MSF teams lamented “that children who recover from malnutrition and are discharged home often need to be readmitted later as their families struggle to find enough food to keep them healthy. This keeps children stuck in a spiral of malnutrition from which it is difficult to escape.”
“We eat when we have food, but there are days when we go hungry, and sometimes the children have to beg for food,” Sadiya, whose child was treated for malnutrition at MSF’s therapeutic feeding centre in Katsina, said.
According to the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, an estimated 78 per cent of people in northwest Nigeria live below the poverty line. Healthcare is often unaffordable or hard to access, and many children have never been vaccinated against common childhood diseases. A very limited amount of international aid reaches the region. All these factors have contributed to the growing numbers of malnourished children in urgent need of treatment.
Despite the escalating crisis, northwest Nigeria lacks the attention and support required to set up a lifesaving response, which needs to include preventive measures such as food distributions and improvements to food security, as well as the early detection of malnutrition cases and timely treatment. MSF urged all aid organisations working in the country to scale up their humanitarian response, and calls on the Nigerian government and local health authorities to act now to prevent a catastrophic loss of life in the months ahead.
MSF has been working in Nigeria since 1996. Currently its teams are responding to the health and malnutrition crisis in northwest Nigeria, working in 10 inpatient therapeutic feeding centres and 35 outpatient therapeutic feeding centres in Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara states.
MSF is also responding to a malnutrition emergency in northeast Nigeria, running a 120-bed intensive therapeutic feeding centre and an outpatient therapeutic feeding programme in Nilefa Kiji centre in Maiduguri, Borno state.
Last year, MSF teams across Nigeria provided inpatient care to 28,000 children with severe malnutrition and enrolled 175,000 children in its outpatient feeding programmes.
MSF raises alarm over escalating malnutrition crisis in northwest
NSCDC Takes Medical Outreach to Community in Nasarawa
By: Michael Mike
The Nigeria Security and Civil. Defence Corps have continued to strengthen collaborations with one of the best HMOs in Nigeria, the United Healthcare International Ltd., this is in a bid to improve the well being of the serving officers and some host communities and also improve on grassroot security techniques and effective information gathering to forestall criminality.
Speaking at the opening ceremony of a medical outreach organised by the NSCDC Commandant General, Dr Ahmed Audi, said the partnership with the United Healthcare International has positively impacted the Corps hence in order to give back to the communities and further foster and improve on the existing synergy between NSCDC and host communities, the Medical Health Service Department of the NSCDC organized the medical outreach programme to promote effective collaborations.
Delivering a goodwill message while representing the CG at the opening ceremony, ACG Ilelaboye Oyejide reiterated the commitment of the Corps to enhancing the health and well being of not only officers and men of the Corps but also the host
communities.
“In carrying out our statutory mandates, it requires the supports of the host communities for positive results and this is why the NSCDC is concerned about the state of health and wellness of the people.
“As an agency with the roles and responsibility of Disaster mitigation we belief that the free medical outreach organized for the people will go a long way to further cement the existing working relationship of the Corps and the entire community”.
The NSCDC Boss hinted that the Medical outreach would be carried out in various communities as time unfolds he noted that the Corps medical officers alongside the United Healthcare HMOs would be at Laminga Local Government Area of Nasarawa State for the first phase in the year.
NSCDC Takes Medical Outreach to Community in Nasarawa
Korean Film Festival Returns to Nigeria After COVID-19 Break
By: Michael Mike
The Korean Embassy in Nigeria has commenced the Korean Film Festival in Nigeria after it went on break during the CIVID-19 pandemic.
The latest edition is the 12th Edition of the festival and was hosted at the Silverbird Cinema, in Abuja between 19th September to 21st September 2024 with several movies screened.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, the Korean ambassador to Nigeria, Kim Pankyu, expressed delight with the return of the festival after it was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
He said: “I have come to deeply feel that South Korea and Nigeria share a strong cultural affinity, especially in their love for music and dance.
“Due to this cultural affinity, various elements, such as fashion and cuisine, along with music, are resonating in Nigeria.
“Particularly, there has been a significant surge in the spread of dramas and films.”
He added that: “Along with the global hit ‘Squid Game’ in 2021, the most-watched drama series on Netflix Nigeria in 2022 was ‘Alchemy of souls’.
“Thus, I have come to realise the importance of introducing Korean films to Nigeria, one of the world’s top 3 film-producing countries.”
Also speaking at the event, the Director-General of the National Council for Arts and Culture, Mr Obi Asika, said millions of Nigerians had fallen in love with K-pop [Korean music] and K-drama [Korean drama].
He said Nigeria would continue to learn from the Koreans to improve its entertainment industry.
Korean Film Festival Returns to Nigeria After COVID-19 Break
New UNAIDS Report that Debt Crisis Has Left Health Chronically Underfunded in Africa
By: Michael Mike
Growing public debt is choking sub-Saharan African countries, leaving them with little fiscal room to finance health and critical HIV services, a new report by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS).
The report said domestic revenues, debt relief and development aid: Transformative pathways for ending AIDS by 2030 Eastern and Southern Africa/ Western and Central Africa, shows that the debt crisis is putting in jeopardy progress made towards ending AIDS.
It added that sub-Saharan Africa accounts for the largest number of people living with HIV, with more than 25.9 million people of the 39.9 million living with HIV globally. The region’s success in having reduced new HIV infections by 56% since 2010 will not be sustained if fiscal space is constrained.
The report, released ahead of the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, showed that the combination of growing public debt payments and spending cuts set out in International Monetary Fund agreements in the next three to five years will, if unaddressed, leave countries dangerously under resourced to fund their HIV responses.
The UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima said: “When countries cannot effectively look after the health care needs of their people because of debt payments, global health security is put at risk,” adding that: “Public debt needs to be urgently reduced and domestic resource mobilization strengthened to enable the fiscal space to fully fund the global HIV response and end AIDS.”
The report said debt servicing now exceeds 50% of government revenues in Angola, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, and Zambia, adding that even after debt relief measures, Zambia will still be paying two-thirds of its budget on debt servicing between 2024 and 2026.
It said there has been a noted decline in HIV response spending since 2017 in Western and Central Africa, from 0.3% of GDP in 2017 to just 0.12% in 2022.
It said Western and Central Africa will need to mobilize US$ 4.18 billion to fully fund the HIV response in 2024. This will climb to US$ 7.9 billion by 2030 unless efforts are scaled up today to stop new HIV infections.
While US$ 20.8 billion was available for the HIV response in 2022 in low and middle-income countries through both domestic and international sources, this funding was not enough to sufficiently finance the HIV response. Western and Central Africa for example had a funding shortfall of 32% in 2022.
In 2024 alone, Eastern and Southern Africa will need to mobilize almost US$ 12 billion to fully fund the HIV response. This amount will climb to around US$ 17 billion by 2030 unless new HIV infections are reduced.
It said to enable increased domestic resource mobilization for countries to respond effectively to their pandemics, sub-Saharan African countries will need to strengthen their tax systems, including closing tax exemptions which currently cost countries an average of 2.6% of GDP in lost revenue across the region. Donors need also to scale up financial assistance for health and the HIV response between now and 2030, while creditors should offer debt relief to heavily indebted countries to ease the burden.
Byanyima said: “World leaders cannot let a resource crunch derail global progress to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.”
New UNAIDS Report that Debt Crisis Has Left Health Chronically Underfunded in Africa
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