No fewer than 150 malnourished babies have in the last four weeks missed their weekly doses of Ready To Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) in Kirfi Center for Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM), as the RUTF stock had run out.
Mr Ado Manga, Officer in charge of Nutrition and Immunization in Kirfi CMAM center, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Saturday.
“For four weeks we are out of stock of the RUTF in Kirfi CMAM center, thereby extending the treatment period.
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“We have given out our mobile numbers to clients to make contact before coming because they spend about N3,500 on transportation to the center,” he said.
Manga, however, said that parents have been sensitized to use local crops to complement their babies’ food.
“We sensitized them on the use of our local crops such as groundnut, soya beans, vegetable, beans, and millet to feed their babies.
“I conduct house-to-house monitoring and parents are practicing the idea,” he said.
The Executive Chairman, Bauchi State Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Dr. Rilwanu Mohammed, in a telephone interview, told NAN that the agency had since directed local government health officers with CMAM centers to collect the RUTF at the agency.
He said the agency currently has 1,750 cartons of the RUTF for the 21 CMAM centers in the state.
Mohammed said that it was the responsibility of local governments to provide logistics for the transportation of the RUTF from the agency to the CMAM centers.