Health
A Consultant Nutritionist, Malam Sani Hassan, has lauded the Kaduna State Government for its interventions in ensuring malnutrition, especially amongst children, was reduced to the bearest minimum.
He made the commendation in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Kaduna, at the sideline of a road walk to commemorate the 2022 International Day of the girl-child, organied by nutrition partners in the state.
The nutrition partners had the theme: “Our Time is Now – Good Nutrition is Our Right to Good Health.”
Hassan, also a member of the National Technical Working Group on Nutrition, said about eight years ago, Kaduna State was considered among 10 states with worse nutrion indicators in Nigeria.
He said the indices were worrisome and challenging, but the Kaduna Government under the current administration, took it seriously and promised to tackle the problems with outmost dedication.
“Some years ago, in company of nutrition partners like WHO and UNICEF, we paid a courtesy visit to Governor El-Rufai and showed him real pictures of severe malnourished children in Kaduna State.
“When he saw the pictures, he vowed never to allow such to continue in the state, where he began release of interventions funds in billions from 2017 to date,”he said.
Hassan noted that the funds were meant for improvement in nutrition, particularly in the management of children who were severely malnourished.
According to him, Kaduna State was doing very well and ranked the highest in investment on nutrition in Nigeria.
He said the state had intervention on management of malnutrition, improvement of child survival, provision of ion folic for women and adolescent girls and passage of nutrition information to over 4.5 million Kaduna residents.
“The nutrition information has helped the people to now be aware of the exact things they need to do from pregnancy to child birth, and also on exclusive breastfeeding, complementary feeding and continuous breastfeeding uptil two years.
“It has also helped them on improvement in other integrated nutrition interventions in Kaduna State,” Hassan said.
He further noted that poor nutrition, especially on girl-child in the society, was caused by stigmatisation which had drastically reduced because of the power of education.
He added that undernutrition negatively affected adolescent girls by preventing the attainment of normal bone strength and their ability to learn and work at maximum productivity.
“Girls are special human beings, they require support, care, and all the necessities of life for the future development of our Nation,” Hassan said.(NAN)
A.I
Tags: Malam Sani Hassan UNICEF WHO
