Northern states record 185,502 rise in child malnutrition cases

A****t least 185,502 more children were treated for acute malnutrition across seven northern states in 2025 than in the previous two years.

The latest data from Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), obtained by Sunday PUNCH, identified the affected states as Zamfara, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Bauchi, Borno, and Sokoto.

It attributed the deepening nutrition crisis to conflict, displacement and shrinking humanitarian funding since the US President Donald Trump’s administration discontinued funding for major health initiatives globally.

The figures are contained in a report titled, ‘Nigeria: Increased malnutrition crisis for children and the mental health strain for caregivers,’ published by MSF.

MSF said its teams “treated 425,634 children for acute malnutrition across northern Nigeria in 2025, a 41.8 per cent increase compared to 2024,” when the organisation treated just over 300,165 children, for a year-on-year rise of 125,469 more children.

The organization revealed that the 2024 figure represented a 25 per cent increase over the previous year, putting the 2023 malnutrition figure at around 240,132.

MSF said “Over 300,000 malnourished children were collectively treated” across Zamfara, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Bauchi, Borno, and Sokoto states in 2024, a 25 per cent increase from 2023.

It attributed the surge to “a combination of factors, including worsening insecurity and displacement, heightened food insecurity, disease outbreaks, reductions in humanitarian funding, and the broader economic crisis, all of which have contributed to increased vulnerability and malnutrition among children.”

The organisation said the crisis had remained critical into 2026, with an estimated 34.7 million people facing crisis levels of food insecurity during the current lean season, and more than 5.4 million children nationwide suffering from acute malnutrition.

MSF noted that it currently runs nutrition projects across the seven northern states of Bauchi, Borno, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto, and Zamfara, operating 12 Inpatient Therapeutic Feeding Centres and more than 30 Ambulatory Therapeutic Feeding Centres.

Between January and June 2025 alone, MSF said it admitted 32,940 severely malnourished children into inpatient centres and a further 136,255 into outpatient therapeutic feeding programmes, together accounting for more than 169,000 children treated in the first half of that year.

The report also emphasised the psychological burden malnutrition places on both children and the caregivers, overwhelmingly mothers, who accompany them through treatment.

MSF said caregivers “usually accompany children during hospital admissions for severe acute malnutrition, which often stretches for long days,” with some remaining at treatment centres for between seven and 45 days depending on the severity of their child’s condition, often cut off from their other children and family responsibilities at home for the period.

“Malnutrition is one disease that doesn’t just affect the child physically. It has psychological, emotional and behavioural implications,” the report quoted an MSF mental health supervisor in Bauchi, Kauna Bako, as saying.

MSF said it now integrates mental health and psychosocial support directly into its malnutrition programmes, including at its Nilefa Kiji nutrition facility in Maiduguri, Borno State.

According to the report, caregivers receive psychological first aid on arrival, followed by individual counselling and group sessions where they can share experiences and learn coping strategies, while children take part in structured play activities designed to restore a sense of normalcy during recovery.

In Kano and Katsina states, the organisation said physiotherapists have also begun integrating rehabilitation into malnutrition care using play and sensorimotor stimulation, while in Bauchi and Zamfara, it said mental health support is now built directly into the treatment protocol for both children and their caregivers.

The report said the caregivers face compounding pressure while hospitalised with a sick child, noting that some become distressed after losing contact with relatives, prompting MSF counsellors to help them reach family members by phone, and in some cases arrange supervised home visits so caregivers can briefly check on their families before returning to complete their child’s treatment.

MSF said its research and field experience across Nigeria and the Republic of Niger had shown that integrating mental health activities into malnutrition treatment “contributes to faster weight gain, shorter lengths of stay in inpatient feeding centres, and improved caregiver well-being.”