Let’s prevent hunger from killing more people than the virus!
By Dr. Moumouni Kinda, Chief Executive Officer of ALIMA
Malnutrition emergency in the Sahel: funding cuts are affecting our action
Faced with an alarming increase in cases of child malnutrition in several of its regions of intervention, ALIMA (The Alliance for International Medical Action) and its partners are sounding the alarm to alert the public about the nutritional crisis that is sweeping through Africa’s Sahel Region and the urgent need for mobilization to treat children under the age of 5, who are greatly at risk.
MUAC for Mothers: A strategy to better screen for malnutrition during the COVID-19 pandemic
ALIMA (The Alliance for International Medical Action)’s MUAC for Mothers program, which has shown great success over the years in helping mothers and other caregivers detect malnutrition in their children at the earliest stages, has become even more important in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Humanitarian crisis in the Sahel: ALIMA strengthens its Rapid Response Mechanism
Large-scale population displacements, a proliferation of armed attacks and high levels of food insecurity have contributed to a humanitarian emergency in the ‘three-border zone’ of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. To meet the ever-increasing needs, ALIMA (The Alliance for International Medical Action) is strengthening its Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM), which aims to ensure access to medical and nutritional care for the most vulnerable people, within a context marked by a deterioration or withdrawal of essential public health facilities.
“My name is Mustapha and I am a nutritionnal assistant here, in Nigeria”
“My name is Mustapha. I am a nutritional assistant here at the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital. I work in ALIMA’s Intensive Therapeutic Feeding Center (ITFC). I want to help children’s health and know everything about nutrition. I am currently also studying to become a nurse. I am currently in my first year of the three-year training course. I go to class whenever I am not working here. I like pediatrics, to take good care of the children.”
ALIMA’s innovative approach to fighting malnutrition gaining momentum
The number of mothers in the Sahel trained to screen their children for malnutrition should increase in 2018, following a recommendation by the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department (ECHO) that all partner organisations teach mothers to regularly measure the mid-upper arm circumference of their children at home using a simple, tri-colored measuring tape, known as the MUAC.
Bernardin: The Detective
“My name is Bernardin Koalga, but they call me ‘the detective.’” This is how the 40-year-old health agent from Burkina Faso introduces himself.
Bernardin, who is in charge of finding children who have defaulted from ALIMA/SOS Medecins/Keoogo malnutrition treatment programs in the Yako health district, in the north of the country, is on a mission to get all malnourished kids back into treatment.
Read on to learn more about his life-saving work.
Optimizing the Treatment of Malnutrition
Since 2012, ALIMA and its partners have been training mothers and other caregivers across Africa to use a simple, tri-colored bracelet, known as the MUAC, to screen their children for the earliest signs of malnutrition.
Nigeria: New Specialized Training Center for the treatment of Malnutrition
Dakar, 10 November 2017 – At the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH), some 40 health workers from across northeastern Nigeria’s Borno State, will be enrolled in a newly created, specialized training school to improve the quality of care provided to children under the age of five who suffer from severe acute malnutrition (SAM) with complications. The program, which will be run by ALIMA (the Alliance for International Medical Action), in partnership with UNICEF and the UMTH, at ALIMA’s Intensive Therapeutic Feeding Center (ITFC) within the UMTH, is the first of its kind in Borno State.
Burkina Faso: Capitalize New Research to Treat Acute Malnutrition
Researchers from the University of Copenhagen and the medical humanitarian organizations ALIMA (The Alliance for International Medical Action) and Doctors Without Borders (MSF) released the findings from a study in Burkina Faso, which treated more than 1,600 children with moderate acute malnutrition. The results, published on September 11, 2017 in the open access medical journal PLOS Medicine, showed that corn-soy porridge should be replaced with a lipid-based nutrient supplement (LNS), a fortified peanut butter. The results of the study can be used directly both in the treatment and prevention of acute malnutrition.
