At least 183 children have been admitted into intensive care at a hospital in Maiduguri in the last week to be treated for malaria and pneumonia.
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF or Doctors Without Borders) which runs the 30-bed Paediatric Hospital in Gwange says the facility is “full that medical teams have been left with no option but to have children share beds.”
It said the resort is “highly unusual and demonstrates the severity of the situation.”
Many children require oxygen and support to breathe, prompting MSF to expand the facility to 48 beds.
Medical teams have been treating up to 70 children in intensive care at one time, the highest number of patients ever treated in the ward since the facility opened.
The numbers have risen in the last seven days as the rains leaves hundreds of children suffering from malaria and pneumonia.
Some 557 patients have been treated at the centre since the start of September, all aged from one month to 15 years for diseases other than cholera.
Other treatment sites have also seen the number of children falling ill increase. In Damaturu, MSF has been forced to expand units for paediatric emergency and stabilisation from 71 to 121 bed.