With over 16,700 severely malnourished patients, mostly children, having received treatment, MSF is now providing for patients suffering from moderate malnutrition. In the regions of Oromiya and SNNP, emergency teams supply supplementary food rations, made up of a corn and soya blend with oil and sugar, to over 1,700 children and their families to try and minimise numbers of children becoming severely malnourished.
A boy is treated in a feeding centre in Oromiya, Ethiopia. August 2008. Photo by Francesco Zizola/Noor
“In such situations, there are almost always more moderately malnourished children than severe, so if we don’t treat them, it becomes a matter of time for them to develop life-threatening severe acute malnutrition.” Says MSF Medical Doctor, Franklin Ackom.
In areas of Oromiya and SNNP regions, the number of weekly admissions keeps increasing with numbers of severely malnourished children treated reaching rare levels. This means that the malnutrition rates are alarming in these areas, but also that some neighbouring areas are still insufficiently covered. So far, three programmes treating moderately malnourished children have been opened.
In a move to focus on the most affected areas, MSF has now handed over its nutritional programmes in Arsi Negele district, Oromiya region, to local health authorities. Newly trained local health staff will now be in charge of this nutritional programme that covers eight different sites.