By Abdulrahman Audu
Kaduna
Malnutrition has caused the death of over 50% children under the age of five in Nigeria, but this could increase in 2017, except stakeholders take immediate steps to address the scourge, UNICEF has said.
Addressing a one-day town hall meeting on the consequences of malnutrition in Kaduna state, representative of UNICEF, Mrs. Florence Oni, said following events such as IDPs, poverty and economic recession among other factors, there is likely to be increased cases of the malnutrition in Kaduna state and Nigeria next year.
She noted that in a bid to address this challenge and take necessary steps to save infants and pregnant women from avoidable deaths, Kaduna state government has contributed N300 million counterparts funding to the N450 million budgeted to buy kits that would address malnutrition in 2017.
“Malnutrition is real and it is with us, it is likely to increase next year. What we are expecting next year will be more than what we are witnessing now. Malnutrition can be very fatal across board and it can affect everybody infants, children even adults. We have a data that is alarming, we are raising alarm for people to prepare for tomorrow.
Kaduna state Commissioner for budget and planning, Mohammed Sani Abdullahi, said the town hall meeting aimed at highlighting the significance of malnutrition to the maternal and child mortality in the state.
“Malnutrition is claiming the lives of our women, children and people across the state. Without proper nutrition lives are at stake due to under nutrition and over nutrition. Unbalanced food can lead to over nutrition, unbalanced diet, inappropriate cooking method and poverty could cause malnutrition. Kaduna as an agrarian state with vast land we cannot allow our citizens to die of malnutrition that was why we started the school feeding programme now called intervention to improve nutrition in the schools.