The Yellow Jerrycan Save a Child Foundation has sensitised pupils and students of schools in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) on the effects of malnutrition on child survival and how to prevent it.
Initiator of the foundation, Mrs Adaora Onyechere, said they focused on malnutrition because it was one of the causes of the high rate of child mortality in the country, especially for children under the age of five.
She said there was need to investigate food and feeding substitutes donations made to Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps by international donors and government because most times they did not get to the children that needed them.
“They are often taken away, misappropriated and sold into the mainstream market, back to people in the system. That is the height of corruption and government should actively look into it,” she said.
She also called for security at displaced persons camps as well as investigation into cases of rape in camps and identification of the specific camps where they happened.
The Head, child health division of the Federal Ministry of Health, Dr Bose Adeniran, said the country’s child mortality indices was still unacceptably high.
She said about 53% of children in the country were malnourished and that the prevalence rate was worse in the north-east and north-west zones.
She said nutrition of the newborn must start from conception to the first five years, for the child to have a good health status, especially in the first two years and the first 1,000 days.
