Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has revealed that its inpatient facilities in northern Nigeria have recorded an extraordinary increase in admissions of severely malnourished children with life-threatening complications, exceeding last year’s figures by over 100 per cent in some locations.
This was contained in a statement issued and signed by MSF Field Communication Manager, Georg Gassauer.
According to the statement by MSF teams, this is an alarming indication of a premature peak of the lean season and the increase in acute malnutrition that accompanies it, typically anticipated in July.
The statement quoted MSF’s Country Representative in Nigeria Dr Simba Tirima saying, “We are resorting to treating patients on mattresses on the floor because our facilities are full. Children are dying. If immediate action is not taken, more lives hang in the balance. Everyone needs to step in to save lives and allow the children of northern Nigeria to grow free from malnutrition and its disastrous long-term, if not fatal, consequences,” says Dr Simba Tirima, MSF’s Country Representative in Nigeria”.
The statement added that humanitarian assistance must be urgently scaled up as MSF calls upon the Nigerian authorities, international organisations and donors to take immediate action to diagnose and treat malnourished children to prevent associated complications and deaths, but also to engage in sustained, long-term initiatives to mitigate the underlying causes of this urgent problem.
It further revealed that in April 2024, MSF’s medical team in Maiduguri admitted 1250 severely malnourished children with complications to the inpatient therapeutic feeding centre, doubling the figure for April 2023, stressing that the development had forced MSF to urgently scale up capacity, . it also stated that by the end of May, the centre accommodated 350 patients, far surpassing the 200 beds initially designated for the peak malnutrition season in July and August.
