Over 500 Malnourished Children in Kano At Risk Of Death- AHREO

The executive director, Advocacy on Human Rights and Equal Opportunity (AHREO), Halima Suleiman, has raised alarm that more children could die from malnutrition under the government provide more Ready to Use Therapy Food (RUTF)–the drugs being administer to revive malnourished children.

No fewer than four of those children under the age of five have already lost their lives in Dambata Local Government Area of the state .

She also disclosed that no fewer than 300 children were in urgent need of the food therapy in the local government.

She spoke on Thursday when She visited the centre alongside pressmen.

She stated that no fewer than 200 parents of malnourished children were been turned down from different centres and advised to “be using local food ,which are ground nut, soghium ,Mellon ,millet and other items” pending the time the RUTF would be available.

She however said this was a dangerous situation as it puts lives of the children at risk.

In order to assist the children as well as avert their untimely death, the NGO advised parents to feed malnurished children with foods such as millet ,sorghum ,soya beans and others that contain good nutrient capable of boosting their health.

Speaking in the same vein, Barrister Maryam Ahmad ,member of the Centre for Awareness and Justice for Accountability, said for over seven months ,the RUTF drugs were out -of stock in the State and most parents of malnurished children were in serious pain

According to her, for the past one year ,some centres in Kano state had ran out of stock of RUTF, which is both food and drug for malnurished children.

“During the time we visited children suffering from this ailment ,we were informed that very day that about four children had lost their lives.”

She said hundreds of children have also lost their lives at some of the centres where the drug was been administered on children.

“But we are happy ,the state government has made available RUTF in most of the centres and is been distributed to them,” she revealed.

The Malnutrition Coordinator in the State, Hajia Halima Musa Yakasai, said RUTF had not been available for the past seven or eight months.

She however added that “we thank Almighty Allah ,the state government has procured about 8,5000 cartons and they are been distributed to all the 70 centres in all the 14 local government areas of the state.

” This drug is very expensive to procure. Formerly UNICEF and the state government collaborated and contributed funds to procure RUT. But recently the donor decided to pull out from funding this process ,because the UNICEF said it does not have enough fund. “