Health
The Federal Government has reiterated its support to nutrition programmes through exclusive breastfeeding, complementary feeding, among others to eliminate poor feeding in children.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, stated this in Maiduguri on Thursday at the opening of a two-day media dialogue on integrated and timely response to nutrition related humanitarian needs.
The dialogue was organised by the Child Rights Information Bureau (CRIB) of the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture in collaboration with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Mohammed, who was represented by the Deputy Director of CRIB, from the ministry, Mr Olumide Osanyipeju, noted that malnutrition was a burden and tackling it entails empowering and educating people on the benefits of balanced diet.
“We need to educate our people on what constitutes a balanced diet, how to achieve this through available resources,” he said.
Mohammed stressed that it was imperative to combat malnutrition because it could cause death in young children, particularly those under the ages of five years.
“There should be concerted effort to fight malnutrition in totality to ensure the attainment of desired results”.
He said that government and other key stakeholders in the health sector should allocate more funds to nutrition related issues.
“Awareness campaign is imperative at this time to create awareness for timely response to nutrition related humanitarian needs in crisis affected areas especially IDP camps in the North East,” he added.
The minister, however, commended the collaboration of Federal Ministry of Health and other partners who have worked relentlessly for the progress of tackling malnutrition. (NAN)
-Sep 26, 2019 @ 15:48 GMT |
Tags: FG reiterates commitment to nutrition programmes
