The Bauchi state House of Assembly, BAHA says it will intensify efforts to address cases of severe acute malnutrition, SAM through active oversight functions and collaboration with health agencies in the state.
The assembly gave the indication in a communiqué issued at the end of a one day retreat organized for the legislators by Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre with support from International Society of Media in Public Health, which took place in Gombe.
WikkiTimes recalled that a Coalition of civil society Organizations and the media under the aegis of Bauchi SAM Network has criticized the state government over its deliberate removal of the earlier proposed N1.2 billion to tackle the scourge of malnutrition that has claimed the lives of many children in the state.
Worried about the unfavorable statistics, the state Assembly says it will liaise with all health agencies to establish child nutrition committee that will be saddle with the responsibility of discussing and addressing seeming gaps in the management and treatment of SAM.
WikkiTimes also reports that while Gombe state government had allocated a whopping N460 million on nutrition activities including on Severe Acute Malnutrition, Bauchi on the other hand had removed the budget despite being the most affected.
This medium recalled that Bauchi state had relegated its earlier budget estimates of N1.2 billion to tackle the scourge of SAM, and there is no explanation as to how the budget estimates were removed.
The 21 CMAM centres supported by UNICEF in Bauchi are lacking the Ready To Use Therapeutic Food, RUTF at the moment, a situation that remains dare to malnourished children in the state.
But the state assembly during the retreat says it was not too late for the issues to be addressed, as it will drives many approaches to ending the menace of malnutrition.
