A Chief nutritionist in the Cross River State Ministry of Health, Dr. Regina Adie, has attributed the malnutrition that has been devastating Nigeria for a long time to poverty, ignorance, improper dieting as well as other factors.

The nutritionist, who conducted a team of United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) functionaries and media chiefs round the special ward for the management of malnourished children in the Calabar general hospital on Thursday, said that malnourishment is rampant in Nigeria also because of wide spread lack of education in that direction.

The UNICEF functionaries, including its Communication specialist, Geoffrey Njoku and the Coordinator of the African Centre for Media and Information Literacy, Mr. Chido Onuma, as well as publishers of Online media and senior correspondents of the major newspapers, television and radio stations across the country were in Calabar for a two-day dialogue on children malnutrition and its effect on the socio-economy of the country.

Dr. Adie said that Cross River state has taken several positive measures to contain the growing cases of malnutrition, adding that from an average of 42 cases, the cases are being reduced and would soon hit zero point.

One of such measures, she said, is the investment in regular screening of mothers and the new born babies through the state's maternal and new born child health programme, adding that the state has been able to identify and control the rate of malnutrition in children through such exercise.

“As its contribution to eradicating this silent health crisis in children, Cross River State government has been settling all the medical bills and feeding of the patients, including their mothers.”

She disclosed that the state government has also embarked on procurement of F75 and F100 food supplements to support the nutritional needs of the affected children at the cost which the state government has been bearing.

The UNICEF Communication Specialist, Mr. Njoku thanked Dr. Adie and the state government for the proactive action towards lessening the effect of malnutrition in the state, even as he called on the media practitioners to redouble their effort in the campaign against malnutrition which he said has a long-term capacity to retard the socio-economic growth of the country.

He also appealed to donor agencies across the world to continue to support the international children agency to enable it tackle the silent health crisis.

•Photo shows malnourished Nigerian children.

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