MSF: One in four children in Shinkafi and Zurmi is malnourished

One in four children under the age of five is malnourished in the Shinkafi and Zurmi areas of Zamfara state, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and the Ministry of Health said.

In a statement released on Thursday by MSF, otherwise known as Doctors Without Borders, it said that according to a mass screening conducted in June by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and the Ministry of Health, of the 97,149 children screened in 21 different urban and rural locations, 27 percent were found to be acutely malnourished, while 5 percent had severe acute malnutrition.

The statement said: “These worrying figures far exceed the ‘critical level’ threshold set by the World Health Organization (WHO) for the prevalence of malnutrition. MSF urges health authorities, international organizations and donors to immediately step up their efforts to address the growing malnutrition crisis in Zamfara state, as well as in the entire north-west of Nigeria, a region not yet included in the UN Humanitarian Response Plan.

“Mass screening in June in Shinkafi and Zurmi areas also revealed that approximately 22 percent of children screened are moderately malnourished. Currently, essential nutritional supplies to treat these children, also known as Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF), are not available, as UNICEF cut off its stockpile earlier this year. This ongoing lack of humanitarian response to treat those who are moderately malnourished in northwest Nigeria puts the lives of these children at risk, who, without immediate treatment, will progress to severe acute malnutrition that threatens their survival and compromises their long-term health.”

Abdullahi Mohammad, MSF Representative in Nigeria, said: “The screening results of Shinkafi and Zurmi are nothing short of alarming, revealing a catastrophic malnutrition crisis in northwest Nigeria,” he said. “The response to this overwhelming disaster is woefully insufficient. With malnutrition rates rising beyond critical levels and no immediate treatment available for moderate acute malnutrition, other than in MSF facilities, we are effectively allowing more children to fall into life-threatening conditions. It is crucial to ensure that every child receives the medical care they desperately need.”

The statement said MSF currently runs four inpatient facilities and 17 outpatient facilities in Shinkafi, Zurmi, Gummi and Talata Mafara in Zamfara, a state severely affected by malnutrition, noting that across all four inpatient facilities, MSF teams have treated over 7,000 children from January to July 2024. These admission figures are 34 percent higher than in the same period in 2023. In Shinkafi and Zurmi, where MSF conducted the recent malnutrition screening, admissions have increased by 50 percent compared to the same period last year. In the Gummi medical facility, admissions in July 2024 were almost double compared to the same month last year.

In addition to the significant increase in admissions for malnutrition, MSF teams are seeing a high number of children with vaccine-preventable diseases, such as measles. In Zamfara, they have treated at least 5,700 cases of measles so far this year. Infectious diseases such as measles, malaria and acute watery diarrhoea severely compromise children’s nutritional status. In turn, malnutrition makes them much more susceptible to these diseases, with a higher risk of death.

“When I first took my son to the hospital, I didn’t know if he would survive,” says Hafsat Lawal, a mother whose son is being treated for malnutrition at an MSF facility in Zamfara. “At home, because of the insecurity, we have no food. Food prices have more than doubled. If we had money, we would have bought some cereals, but we can’t.”

Communities are facing high levels of violence in Zamfara and have told MSF teams that they are afraid to move around the state, taking huge risks to reach functioning health facilities. Health authorities estimate that in 2023, only around 200 of Zamfara’s 700 health centres are accessible and the rest are not functioning. One reason is that health workers have difficulty reaching them.
Despite the ongoing humanitarian crisis and high levels of insecurity they face, communities in the North West have long been excluded from the coordinated humanitarian response. It is essential that health authorities in this area, together with international organizations and donors, urgently scale up their response. An immediate expansion of health facilities to treat malnourished children is needed to ensure that more hospitals can offer the kind of hospital-based care that is desperately needed to save lives. In addition, UNICEF, as the main provider of RUTF, must ensure the continued and sufficient distribution of this essential therapeutic food to prevent more children from falling victim to this crisis.

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