800,000 Kano Children Suffer Stunted Growth Poor Diet

Co-Chairman, Kano Emirate Council Committee on Health and Human Development, Dr Dayyabu Muhammad, has disclosed that poor dieting intake has left 800,000 children between the ages of six to 59 months stunted in Kano State. 

Referring to a recent baseline survey conducted by United Nations Children’s Fund at a one-day town hall meeting organised by KECCoHD in collaboration with UNICEF in Bichi, Muhammad revealed that plans were ongoing to ensure that 25,075 mothers and caregivers for children aged six-23 months in Bichi and Sumaila local government areas were reached by counselling and education messages on improving dietary diversity. 

The town hall meeting was convened as part of the outreach programme to educate community leaders on dietary diversity with a view to saving 23,508 children.

Also speaking at the town hall meeting, the UNICEF Chief of Kano office, Maulid Warfa, said that the dietary diversity initiative was a strategy to improve the feeding of children from six to 23 months supposedly after the successful completion of exclusive breastfeeding.

According to him, the choice of Bichi and Sumaila for the model project was based on some proven scientific surveys done, which he said had made it critical to start the practice with the two local governments, adding that the achievement to be recorded would determine the level of scaling up.