361, 000 children die of acute malnutrition in Nigeria

This was revealed by the head of  Monitoring and Evaluation of Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre,(CISLAC),Mrs Lovelyn Agbor on Wednesday in a one day retreat for members  of the Gombe state House of Assembly  at Chartwell  Hotel and Suit, Bauchi state.

As it is,  according to the National Nutrition and Health Survey of 2018, Nigerian has 2.6 Million Cases of Severe Acute Malnutrition, with the North East, where Gombe State  is located, carrying the highest burden of 60 percent of the cases.

She said that the main objective of taking house members away from their comfort zones was to have their undivided attention so they could have a deeper knowledge on the current challenges around SAM in Nigerian and Gombe State in particular and explore avenues on how they could fast track appropriate measures to change the current trend in the State.

According to her, maternal under nutrition results in low birth weight which in turn, contributes to high incidences of infant and maternal mortality in Nigeria

Lovelyn then  called on the legislators  to  emphasised more on preventive approach towards  addressing SAM challenges in the their state.

In his address , the Gombe State speaker of the house of assembly Hon. Sadiq Ibrahim assured CISLAC and other partners of the House support towards achieving desired goals and objectives in addressing Menace of SAM.

Acccording to him, “as you maybe aware, the topmost  priority area of the our state governor focuses on health, the state of assembly has since keyed into this priority areas of concern to give it all the necessary support”.

He then assured  of their  commitment towards improvement and reducing cases of SAM to the bearest minimum in the state.