The Médecins Sans Frontières, also known as Doctors Without Borders has disclosed that it treated 208,644 outpatients and 52,278 inpatients for malnutrition in Nigeria in 2023.
The MSF’s Country Representative in Nigeria, Dr. Simba Tirima, made this known while presenting the organization’s 2023 activity report in Nigeria at a press briefing in Abuja on Tuesday.
The report showed that in 2023, there were “689,979 outpatient consultations, 80,089 inpatient admissions, 322,010 patients treated for malaria, 689,979 outpatient consultations, 80,089 inpatient admissions, 21,758 deliveries, 2,616 cesarean section, 125,366 antenatal consultations, 12,255 children treated for measles.
“4,701 patients treated for cholera, 229 patients treated for meningitis, 364 patients treated for Lassa fever, 14,832 patients treated for diphtheria, 785 patients treated for tuberculosis, 2,384 survivors of sexual violence assisted, 299 reconstructive surgery for Noma survivors, and 276 vesicovaginal fistula surgeries carried out.”
MSF has been working in Nigeria since 1996. As of December 2023, it has regular projects in 11 states across Nigeria – Bauchi, Benue, Cross River, Ebonyi, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto, and Zamfara.
Tirima said, “In all the states where we work, we work in government facilities, and in many ways, we engage some of the staff from those facilities to work with MSF staff as well. And so, we’re clearly under the auspices of the authorities in the Federal Government and the State Governments of Nigeria.
“MSF engages employees – more than 4,000 Nigerians to do the job that we do, our international colleagues here are about 10 per cent, and the results that you see revert to our Nigerian colleagues who are competent in doing that job.
“Of course, we have donors. MSF doesn’t take institutional funds, we don’t take government funds, we have private, individual donors, 97 per cent of our funds come from that source, and without those donors, we wouldn’t be able to deliver the very much-needed aid that gets to the most vulnerable people in this country.”
The Head of Mission, Karsten Noko noted about 8,000 cases of measles have been reported in the first quarter of 2024, and 52 per cent of the cases were confirmed at the laboratory.
On malnutrition, he explained that there is an increasing number of hospitalisation due to malnutrition in Bauchi, Kano, Borno state, Zamfara, Sokoto, and all the states where the organisation operates.
“In Kastina, we see also a little bit of a decrease in malnutrition cases, but that doesn’t mean that it does not exist. We handed over a lot of health facilities back to the Ministry of Health, they are also capturing a lot of malnutrition cases.
“So, when you see the burden of malnutrition existing, this is due to a lot of problems which are involving the economic situation. The vaccination coverage is quite low. And you know, measles also is impacting the nutrition situation.
“Measles is a viral infection which impacts children from six months until five years, and most of it, it impacts the mucosa of the intestine, whereby the children are not able to absorb all the nutrition of whatever they have eaten, and then that will lead to malnutrition or severe malnutrition,” Noko said.
On his part, the Head of Mission Advisor, Usman Buba Usman, called for home-grown solutions in addressing malnutrition in the country.
