Malnutrition: 800, 000 Under 5 Children Stunted in Kano – Emirate Reveals
By Uangbaoje Alex
Kano Emirate Council Committee on Health and Human Development (KECCoHD), has revealed that about 800, 000 children of 6 to 59 months are stunted due to poor dietary in Kano state, according to a recent baseline survey conducted by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Dr. Dayyabu Muhammad of KECCoHD, made the disclosure at a one-day town hall meeting for community leaders on dietary diversity comprehensive modeling project organized in collaboration with UNICEF, held at Bichi local government area on Thursday.
Dr. Dayyabu, explained that the outcome of the survey is what rigger the committee to began an outreach in two local government areas in the state with a view to save 23, 508 children aged 6-23 months by ensuring they have their diet increased to at least 5 food groups including one animal source protein.
He said the committee is also aimed at ensuring 25,075 mothers and caregivers of children aged 6-23 months in the two local governments of Bichi and Sumaila are reached by counseling and education messages on improving dietary diversity
Similarly, UNICEF Chief of Kano office, Maulid Warfa revealed that the dietary diversity initiative is a strategy to improve the feeding of children from 6 month to 23 months supposedly after the successful completion of exclusive breastfeeding for every new born child.
According to him, the choice of Bichi and Sumaila for the model project was based on some proven scientific surveys done which he said had made it critical to start the practice with the 2 local governments adding that hopefully the achievement to be recorded in these 2 local governments would determine the level of scaling up.
“Dietary diversity is a community driven process to help children grow healthy and to their full potential. Ingredients to help dietary diversity include among others like egg, milk, fish, soya beans, beans, groundnut paste, papaya, pumpkin, while continuing breastfeeding is critical in helping the baby grow healthy to his or her full potential,” he said.
