The International Society for Media in Public Health (ISMPH) has described the over two million cases of children suffering Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) as alarming, saying the rates “were totally unacceptable for a country not confronted with a war situation”.
Executive Director of the ISMPH, Mrs Moji Makanjuola, raised the alarm in Abuja while speaking during the dissemination of the European Union Agents for Citizen-driven Transformation (EU-ACT) supported project on ‘Empowerment of Women and the Prevention of SAM in in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
Makanjuola regretted that Nigeria is still battling very highly serious malnutrition issues such as underfeeding, overfeeding and wrong feeding, they all have health issues.
“Of these, underfeeding is our focus in terms of quality and quantity. This is shown because we have well over two million children not just malnourished but also Severely Acutely malnourished.
“It is a very sad situation and unacceptable for a nation that is not at war. Some of the images of these SAM children are so disturbing that you mistake them for images from a drought zone or war zone,” she said.
“This status leaves them at the least, wasted, stunted and with weak cognitive and affective domains and are thus unable to compete with their peers in a 21st Century world driven by Science and Technology that are primarily brain driven,” she lamented.
The Executive Director maintained that the plights of malnutrition was totally avoidable and preventable when actions are taken to feed infants right, she therefore called for attention to be paid to diet education for mothers to enable them feed their children with the right food combination.
“Poverty is a major factor fueling malnutrition but this could be tackled by empowering women, especially in rural areas, to be able to earn money to be able to purchase healthy meals for their children,” she urged.
Earlier, the Technical Management Committee, Association for Advancement of Family Planning (AAFP), Dr. Ejike Oji, said Nigeria is currently facing a demographic crises and this has stripped the resources meant for the people, saying the population policy is well regulated will fund family planning properly as a means of birth control and have children by choice and not by chance.
The Focal person, European Union ACT Programme, Ms Seyi Tetteh, said it had become imperative to prevent more children from getting severely malnourished and exploring existing treatment options for children suffering from SAM such as the Community Based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) programme, which adopts an innovative and cost effective treatment for those within the SAM bracket.