It dawned bright and sunny in Makary locality of Cameroon’s Far North region.
Inna Abaicho was among the first to arrive with her son at Makary Integrated Health Center. The child is 14 months but looks skinny because of poor nutrition. Malnutrition comes with symptoms involving weight loss, reduced appetite, and tiredness and the boy shows such signs.
“I didn’t eat well during pregnancy. The child got sick. He had diarrhea. We took him to the district hospital, and they hospitalized us,” said the 23-year-old mother.
Malnourished children and parents are not rare at the malnutrition ward of the Makary Integrated Health Center, which serves more than 32,000 people in the war-ridden region.
Years of violence by terror group Boko Haram has left thousands of families in abject poverty.
“The situation is alarming. We receive more and more malnourished children every week, despite the efforts of the Cameroonian state and its partners,” said Abanchime Kachalla, chief of Makary Integrated Health Center.
Josephine Guina’a, who supervises the malnutrition ward, said: “We receive a lot of babies under five years old, around 35 cases of malnutrition per month.”
And in peak periods, the number could surge to 75 cases a month, she said.
Kachalla said the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is offering its utmost help to the malnourished children, working with local health centers to improve the diet of children and ensure monitoring of the situation.
The ICRC runs feeding programs, including the provision of Plumpy’Nut, a type of ready-to-use therapeutic food.
“We give 15 sachets (of Plumpy’Nut) to each child each week. It really helps, and there are times when we make enriched porridge for the child if we are out of nuts for the children,” said 26-year-old Lindo Salta, a nurse at the health center. “There are children who recover.”
“For us, who are with them every day, we would like to see these children in good health, and the big step has already been taken by the ICRC, and we would like it to continue,” Guina’a added.
Abaicho was one of those who received Plumpy’Nut sachets for her child.
“They’ve been giving us nuts. Every day he takes one. When it’s finished, we go and take more. It is changing his situation a bit. I’m really happy,” Abaicho said.
The feeding programs have made a “remarkable” impact on children’s health and development, saving countless lives one day at a time, Kachalla said.
Apart from therapeutic feeding programs, the ICRC has made sure that the health center is up and running.
The center, which had only one staff member at the beginning, now has 14, with the support of the ICRC, Kachalla said. “That is very appreciable, because we have almost all the staff we need in this health center.” ■
