The United Nations World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Tuesday it is sending 100 000 malaria treatments to Niger, concerned that malnutrition in the sub-Saharan country could worsen the child death rate from the disease.
”Even under ordinary conditions in Niger, 50% of all deaths among children are from malaria,” the Geneva-based UN agency said in a statement, adding that 200 000 children are also at risk of malnutrition.
The disease is harder to diagnose in starving people because of complications caused by other symptoms.
”Without appropriate measures, the toll could rise even higher, because malnutrition makes children more likely to succumb to the disease,” the WHO said, warning that 100 000 children face malaria as well as hunger.
The peak of the malaria season has begun in Niger and is forecast to continue until perhaps the end of October.
Niger, at the bottom of the UN development index, suffers from chronic food shortages, made worse by last year’s invasion of desert locusts that was the worst in more than a decade.
More than 40 000 children have been treated for severe malnutrition.
Last week, Prime Minister Hama Amadou told the BBC ”assistance was no longer needed”, and that if relief agencies went on with food distributions, it would be an affront to the country’s dignity, but international and non-governmental agencies expressed astonishment and said aid must go on.
In August, the food problem was so serious that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan paid a two-day visit to Niger, warning that if more aid did not reach the country soon, the food crisis could rapidly deteriorate.
The UN had then estimated, before harvests expected at the end of September, that 2,5-million people in Niger were in ”a vulnerable situation”, including 32 000 children ”in danger of dying”. — Sapa-AFP