There is great fear in Gombe State following the discovery of some severely malnourished children in some parts of the State who are facing death any moment if immediate attention is not given to them.
A visit to the Gidan Magani Centre of the Community Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) site Tuesday morning showed that the attention of Gombe State Government is urgently needed to address the situation after it was discovered that the Ready to Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) used to revive the acutely malnourished children have been non available for more than four months.
According to Mohammed H Bawa, the Nutrition Officer of Gombe Local Government Area, since 25th January, 2019 when they had the last supply of the RUTF, the supply only resumed last Friday, 19th July, 2019.
Our Correspondent gathered that more worrisome is the fact that the last supply may be the last following issues of lack of counterpart funding from the State Government and the likely withdrawal of UNICEF from the RUTF programme.
Mohammed H Bawa told Journalists, Civil Society Organizations and the International Society for Media in Public Health (ISMPH) that he took stock of five hundred cartoons of the RUTF on Monday 22nd July, 2019 after its release last Friday.
He said the stock may last for only two months in his centre considering the high patronage of the centre from within and especially from outside Gombe, the State capital.
While at the site, our Correspondent saw several mothers with their malnourished children waiting to be attended to at the CMAM site. Some of the women, who visited the clinic for only routine immunization, were referred to the CMAM centre following the ignorance of the parents over the status of their severely malnourished children.
Seventeen months old Ahmadu Mohammed, who was brought in by his mother, Fatima Mohammed, weighed 5.2kg and 29.2 in length when they first came to the centre in the morning from Kurba village, in Yamaltu-Deba Local Government Area of the State.
Incidentally, Kurba is the home town of the current Speaker of the Gombe State House of Assembly, Hounourable Ibrahim Abubakar Sadiq.
According to Fatima, Ahmadu’s mother, she had been giving her child traditional treatment when she noticed the change in her child since April this year but had to come to Gombe after being informed of the centre.
Another severely malnourished child, Fatima Babangida, nine months old, who was brought to the centre by her mother, Fatsuma Babangida, expressed ignorance of the exclusive breastfeeding formula during her ante-natal days. She said she had been feeding the baby with whatever they eat in the house for a very long time.
The case in Gombe State has become very dangerous following the non release of counterpart funding for appropriated nutrition activities from the State Government coupled with the fact that UNICEF, a major financier of the RUTF may no longer be funding the programme.
Also, volunteers working in the centres who ensure interface between parents at different communities have disappeared following their disappointment at non offer of permanent employment after working for over six months.
