Malnutrition

Nigeria: Health Crisis in Borno State

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For the first time, a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) team went to Dikwa, a town 90km from Maiduguri in Borno State, northeast Nigeria, to carry out a nutrition assessment on children under the age of 5 years. There are around 70,000 displaced people living in Dikwa, some of whom have have been living in Boko Haram controlled areas until very recently.

The team recorded a 13% rate of severe malnutrition amongst those screened. On the morning of 20th July alone, they identified 34 children who required hospitalisation and a further 663 severely malnourished cases. Due to the limited medical and transport capacity, the team was only able to evacuate the most urgent cases, who were immediatey admitted to the Gwange Inpatient Therapeutic Feeding Centre (ITFC), on the outskirts of Maiduguri