Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Doctors Without Borders, has called for urgent scale-up of the humanitarian response in Borno in advance of the ‘hunger gap’ peak period.
This is contained in a statement by MSF spokesman Abdulkareem Yakubu on Friday.

“Since May, MSF. has been witnessing an unprecedented influx of malnourished children to our nutrition centre in Maiduguri, Nigeria, suggesting an alarming nutritional crisis in Borno state,” the organisation stated. “We are therefore calling for an urgent scale up of the humanitarian response in Borno in advance of the ‘hunger gap’ peak period, which could be much more severe than previous years if current trends continue.”

Also MSF head of mission in Nigeria, Shaukat Muttaqui, said critical action needed to be taken now in advance to the seasonal malnutrition peak to avoid a worse situation.

The MSF added that 2,140 malnourished children were admitted in the MSF inpatient therapeutic feeding centre (ITFC) , indicating about 50 per cent more patients than from the same period last year.

“For six weeks in May and June, even though the peak hunger gap season had barely begun, more malnourished patients arrived than at any time since the project opened in 2017 – including at the very peak of the season in previous years,” MSF stressed.

It added, “Up until May, our outpatient therapeutic feeding programme saw a 25 per cent increase in enrolments compared to last year. In response, our teams extended the existing ITFC capacity from 120 beds to 200 beds. Even with that emergency measure in place, for some days in June there were not enough beds for all the malnourished children being admitted.”

According to MSF, other humanitarian organisations have also been operating at full or beyond their capacities and in some cases organisations have had to reduce services due to a lack of funding – including the closure of 16 much-needed outpatient therapeutic feeding centres.

“As a result and if current trends continue, services will be overwhelmed, and many more malnourished children will be at risk of dying,” the statement noted.

According to MSF, what is needed urgently is an increase in hospital capacity for treatment of severely malnourished children that must also be met in parallel with a major scale up of interventions at the community level by expanding outpatient feeding programmes, food security, immunisation, and access to water and hygiene.

(NAN)