Posted on 19 July, 2012
But then we hear a message on the radio. Rink, one of our star Water/Sanitation guys has gone up to K18 to check that the water supply can be reactivated. He’s discovered about 100 families that must have arrived in recent days from the border. He asks for medical support and Erna, our top medic that has been here since the start of this refugee crisis, from the initial discovery of weak, exhausted refugees that were beyond medical care to the erection of a clinic at K18 to the transfer of all refugees to T3 and finally Batil, grabs her kit and jumps in a car, cancelling the first day off she’s had in a month.
Read more about the situation on her blog.
Malnutrition in the Sahel: One Million Children Treated, But What’s Next?
In this interview, MSF pediatrician Susan Shepherd and MSF nutrition specialist Stéphane Doyon Discuss the situation in the Sahel Region
One million children suffering from severe malnutrition will be treated this year by governments and aid organizations across the Sahel. How should we interpret this number?
Susan Shepherd: It’s both a failure and a success. The failure is that each year, countries within the Sahel will face recurrent, large-scale nutritional crises that are growing even worse in some countries. One million malnourished children—that’s an enormous figure. But the most important take away from this year is how all of the aid actors—governments, United Nations agencies, and NGOs—have managed the crisis. Because of this, the major success is that for the first time, one million malnourished children will be treated in the Sahel, and the vast majority of these one million children will recover.
Stéphane Doyon: Prior to the 2005 nutrition crisis in Niger, malnourished children didn’t receive treatment and childhood malnutrition was virtually unrecognized. One million malnourished children receiving treatment doesn’t necessarily imply things are getting worse, but rather implies a major step forward in treatment. Improved malnutrition management results in large part from the political will summoned by the governments who wish to tackle this pathology. For the first time since the 2005 nutritional crisis in Niger, the most-affected countries have implemented ambitious response plans for treating malnourished children and establishing early preventive measures. Donors have committed to funding programs for therapeutic foods and nutritional supplements that are adapted to the needs of infants, even if all the funds have not yet been released.
Read the rest of this interview here.
Photo:A mother and her two-year-old await treatment at an MSF Inpatient Therapeutic Feeding Center in Niger.
Niger March 2012 © Julie Remy