Worst malnutrition in decade claims 67 Ethiopian kids
From ADANE BIKILA in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
ADDIS ABABA, (CAJ News) – AT least 67 children have died of malnutrition this month in eastern Ethiopia where an acute humanitarian emergency is unfolding.
This represents a ten-fold increase in malnutrition outbreaks at the Doolo zone in the country’s Somali region. The alarming levels are the highest ever seen in ten years.
In Danod, Lehel-Yucub, Wardher, Galadi and Daratole, Médecins Sans Frontières(MSF)/ Doctors Without Borders teams have treated 6 136 children under five for severe acute malnutrition since January.
This is over ten times more than in the same period of 2016, when 491 children received treatment for the life-threatening condition.
In the first two weeks of June alone, 322 severely malnourished children were admitted in the four inpatient feeding centres supported by MSF.
Despite all medical efforts, 51 of the children did not survive. A similar predicament befell 15 others earlier in the year.
“The deaths of these 67 children show the gravity of the situation,” Saskia van der Kam, MSF nutritional advisor.
“What we are seeing is a humanitarian emergency,” she said.
The malnutrition crisis comes in the wake of two failed rainy seasons in the East African country.
Many people have seen their livestock die as a result of the drought, which has forced them to abandon their traditional nomadic way of life.
They have settled in informal camps, where they do not have enough food and safe water to survive.
MSF teams, working alongside Ethiopian health authorities, have set up 27 outpatient therapeutic feeding centres and four inpatient therapeutic feeding centres to treat children with severe malnutrition.
– CAJ News
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