By Aliyu Dangida

DUTSE—JIGAWA State Government has said the state has 1.8 million children suffering from acute malnutrition, also with the highest rate of stunted children as a result of malnutrition.

The Executive Secretary of Jigawa State Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr. Kabir Ibrahim, who spoke at an advocacy meeting with local governments’ chairmen on increased funding for the procurement of routine drugs, said the number of stunted children had risen to 63 per cent according to 2016 report by the nutritionists specialist of UNICEF.

He lamented that the situation was not only alarming, but pathetic to the survival of children, who he described as younger generation.

*File photo: Malnourished children

According to him, “Severe Acute Malnutrition, SAM, is a serious menace to the society. We need to do more to curtail this situation for a better tomorrow. Additional support of funds from the two tiers of government has to be considered.”

The Executive Secretary, who was represented by the Director in the agency, Dr. Sambo Shehu, explained that government would not fold its arms to see children die from such avoidable situation, noting that efforts had been on to save 55,094 children with over 70,000 cases of severe acute malnourished children treated.

According to him, the state had 64 Out Patients Trapetic Centres, OTPS, across 12 council, where there were 74,000 patients with severe acute malnutrition on admission and 811 died across the councils.

Earlier, Chief of Field Office, UNICEF Nigeria D office, Bauchi, Abdulai Kaikai, said over N6.084 billion was invested in the procurement of RUTF for the treatment of 280,980 severe malnourished children in the state eight years ago.