The Civil Society Scaling Up Nutrition in Nigeria (CS-SUNN) has urged the Gombe State Government to embrace Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF), saying it will help in the fight against malnutrition. Speaking at a media engagement in Gombe, the state coordinator, Comfort Mukollo, said the government must educate people on how to prevent malnutrition.
Mukollo said, “This is simply about promoting Infant Young Child Feeding. IYCF is a preventive, rather than curative, method of ending malnutrition.
“It is cheaper and easier for the government when we prevent our children from becoming malnourished. There will be no need to spend huge sums of money buying the Ready to Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF).”
The chairman of the maternal neonatal child health in Gombe State, Alhassan Yahya, said it was unfortunate that Nigeria was one of the countries with high cases of malnutrition. He described the malnutrition cases in Gombe State as alarming, adding that in the past, the state had witnessed an increase in the number of children suffering from Severe Acute Malnutrition.
Yahya said, “After a feasibility study by the United Nations International Children Emergency Fund, it was realised that malnutrition thrives in so many local government areas of the state. UNICEF decided to launch a Community-based Management of Acute Malnutrition programme.” “As members of the media, we have roles to play in setting the agenda for the government to invest more money to propagate the message about the Infant and Young Children’s Feeding campaign.” Punch
This is a great job CS-SUNN, in a way it will complement and buttress on the effort of the Worldbank and key MDAs on ANRiN project which was piloted in Gombe State March, 2020 through an advocacy visit and conduct of food demonstration to craete a behavioral change of consuming nutritious foods. The activity is aimed to reduce malnutrition targeting Pregnant women, lactating mothers and children under-5 years.