Expert laments high number of malnourished children in Gombe

A Civil Society Organization, Scaling-Up Nutrition in Nigeria said Gombe state has the highest number of malnourished children in the North-east sub-region of the country.

The senior monitory and evaluation officer of the organization, Jayne Arinze Egemonye, stated this while presenting the state policy brief on nutrition during the CS-SUNN pooled fund project dissemination meeting in Gombe Tuesday.

She said that child nutrition indicators in Nigeria Demographic Health Survey reported that 51.2 percent of under-five children were stunted, 17 percent were   wasted and 33.2 percent were underweight out of the 536,747 under five children population in the state

She added that the under-five mortality rate in the state is 162 deaths per 1000 live births, and an infant mortality rate of 90 per 1000 live birth according to MiCS 2016.    

“Only 24.5 percent of children less than 6 months are exclusively breastfed according to MISC 2016 and adequate nutrition which is essential to children’s growth and development. The first 1000 days if a child’s life the period from conception to age 2 is especially important for optimal physical, mental and cognitive growth, health and development,” she said.

The organization also called on state government to increase funding for nutrition in the 2020 budget.

 “State investments in the key nutrition intervention have been insufficient and have continued to decline between 2015 and 2018. Most times despite budgetary allocation, little or no funds are released.

 “It has been observed that even when the government expands the size of the state budget, the budget for nutrition-specific interventions does not follow the same trajectory,” she said.

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