Angela Onwuzoo The Lagos State Government in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, has trained no fewer than 60 frontline health workers on maternal, infant, and young child nutrition to reduce the burden of malnutrition in the state and country in general. The state government expressed optimism that the training of the health workers with support from the World Bank through its Accelerating Nutrition Results in Nigeria Project, would check high infant deaths linked to malnutrition in the country. Nigeria is ranked number one in Africa and second in the world in terms of malnourished children, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund.
UNICEF also states that 12 million out of the 35 million under-five children in Nigeria are stunted due to malnutrition. Left untreated, experts say children with severe acute malnutrition are nearly 12 times more likely to die than a healthy child. Speaking at the ongoing training of the health workers in Lagos, on Tuesday, the Director and Head of the Nutrition Department, Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Ladidi Bako-Aiyegbusi, said the nutrition workshop is more of a preventive approach and not treatment.
The workshop was organised by the Federal Government under the Federal Ministry of Health, Nutrition Department and supported by the World Bank ANRIN project. The World Bank ANRIN project focuses on the prevention of malnutrition among pregnant women and lactating mothers including chil.
