One out of every four children under the age of five is malnourished in the Shinkafi and Zurmi areas of Nigeria’s Zamfara state, according to a mass screening conducted in June by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and the Ministry of Health.
Of the 97,149 children screened in 21 different urban and rural locations, 27 per cent were found to be suffering from acute malnutrition, with five per cent having severe acute malnutrition.
These concerning figures far exceed the ‘critical level’ threshold established by the World Health Organization (WHO) regarding malnutrition prevalence. MSF urges health authorities, international organisations, and donors to immediately intensify their efforts to tackle the escalating malnutrition crisis in Zamfara state and the whole of north-west Nigeria – a region not yet included in the United Nations Humanitarian Response Plan.
The mass screening held in June in the Shinkafi and Zurmi areas further revealed that about 22…