By Beatrice Gondyi Bauchi
The Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), has decried that the massive budget cuts particularly from the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union is having a real impact on the treatment of malnourished children.
Country Representative of the MSF in Nigeria, Ahmed Aldikhari made this known in a press statement issued to newsmen in Bauchi on Friday.
According to Ahmed Aldikhari, “in the context of drastic cuts in international funding, the need for prevention and treatment of malnutrition is enormous in northern Nigeria, and urgent mobilization is required”.
While pointing out that the true scale of malnutrition crisis exceeds all predictions, Aldikhari said the year 2024 marked a turning point in Northern Nigeria’s nutritional crisis, with an increase of 25 percent from the previous year.
He said in Katsina state, MSF has opened a new ambulatory therapeutic feeding center (AFTC) in Mashi and an additional inpatient therapeutic feeding center (ITFC) in Turai, to provide a total of 900 beds in two MSF-supported hospitals.
Aldikhari explained that, in order to cope with the massive influx of children expected by the end of the lean season in October, MSF has increased its support to local authorities in several states in Northern Nigeria where it is providing care to the population.
He stressed that between January and June 2025, the number of malnourished children with nutritional oedema, the most severe and deadly form of malnutrition, rose by 208 percent compared with the same period in 2024.
While also regretting that 652 children have already died in MSF facilities since the beginning of 2025 due to a lack of timely access to care, Aldikhari noted that a worrying sign of the growing severity of malnutrition, a major public health emergency, is that, adults, particularly women, including pregnant and breastfeeding ones are also affected.
He said by the end of June 2025, nearly 70,000 malnourished children had already received medical care from MSF teams in Katsina State, including nearly 10,000 who were hospitalized in serious condition.
Aldikhari explained that a screening carried out in July in all five MSF malnutrition centers in Katsina State on 750 mothers of patients, revealed that more than half of adult caregivers were acutely malnourished, including 13 percent with severe acute malnutrition.
Discussion about this post