According to the Kaduna administration, its high-impact, low-cost nutrition programs have resulted in a consistent decrease in the number of children dying from severe malnutrition.

According to Ms Haruna, the number of deaths reduced from 672 in 2017 to 221 in 2018. She went on to say that the figure rose to 323 in 2019 before falling to 142 in 2020, 58 in 2021, 37 in 2022, and three in February 2023.

Ms Haruna also praised the constant increase in the number of persons attending Community Infant and Young Person Feeding Support Group Meetings.

Attendance grew from 96,673 in 2018 to 137,343 in 2019, 169,569 in 2020, 205,469 in 2021, and 316,203 in 2022, according to the nutrition officer.

She revealed that as of February 2023, 68,769 people have attended the support group gathering.

According to Haruna, moms and caregivers openly talked and learned about infant and young child feeding (IYCF) knowledge and practices at support group sessions.

She stated that the outstanding performance demonstrated the communities’ growing trust in the services offered.

The nutrition officer attributed the state’s gains in improving children’s nutrition indices to efforts by the Kaduna government, with assistance from development partners.

“There is also increased access to services from 77 health facilities in 15 local government areas (LGAs) in 2021 to 117 facilities in the 23 LGAs in 2022 under the Outpatient Therapeutic Programme (OTP),” she said.

The goal of the review conference, according to Linda Yakubu, head of Development Aid Coordination at PBC, was to collect information on nutrition initiatives from implementing MDAs.

According to Ms Yakubu, the seminar was also organized to train nutrition desk officers in MDAs on optimal nutrition modeling and to introduce participants to biofortification recipes.

“We will also deliberate and come up with a key message for a proposed nutrition billboard as outlined in the KDMSPAN,” she said.

(NAN)