Why should we wait for a child to be on the brink of death to act?” – Stéphane Doyon, MSF Nutrition Team Leader
In Niger, MSF field staff have started mitigating the effects of hunger on children by providing enriched food before the hungry season that precedes each year’s harvest. Normally children are treated only once they show symptoms of malnutrition. Treating them before symptoms develop can help prevent long-term poor health and disability in children exposed to malnutrition every year.
Women and their children queuing for food supplements, August 2007. Photo by Michael Goldfarb/MSF
Studies have long shown that prevention works better than treatment, but the 2007 programme represents the first large-scale implementation of the concept. Typically, most food aid provided to children is in the form of Corn-Soy Blend (CSB). However, MSF Access to Essential Medicines Campaign Director Dr. Tido von Schoen-Angerer notes that CSB “lacks the critical nutrients that growing children need and does little to prevent malnutrition."
MSF is part of a broader effort to change the way that child malnutrition is addressed. The World Food Programme (WFP) in Burkina Faso and UNICEF in Somalia have also started giving food supplements aimed at preventing child malnutrition as part of the rations they provide to families. In 2007, MSF was able to curb the seasonal peak in child malnutrition among 62,000 children from rural Niger.
For more information on the fight against seasonal child malnutrition in Niger, click here to visit MSF's Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines website.