Recent survey by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) indicates that malnutrition accounts for the death of 2,300 Nigerian children daily.
It also notes that more than 2.5 million children under the age of five are suffering from severe acute malnutrition and are likely to die if adequate funding is not provided to treat them.
Senate Committee on Health, on Monday, mandated the Federal Ministry of Health to propose N96 billion in 2017 budget for tackling acute malnutrition in the country.
It further stated that government might be compelled to declared a state of emergency on malnutrition in the country if adequate funding is not made available for the condition.
Chairman of the committee, Senator Olanrewaju Tejuoso gave the directive at the committee’s “High Level Policy Dialogue on Nutrition” in Abuja.
With over 2.2 million children are threatened by malnutrition in the Northern part of Nigeria, the federal, state and local governments have been urged to give special attention to nutrition in the 2017 budgetary allocation so as to scale up infant and young children feeding practices and micro-nutrients deficiency.
