Doctors sending an SOS
Medical personnel in a race to save lives of malnourished children in Angola are urgently calling for medical and food supplies in order to stop the deteriorating situation among children.
Dr. Almeida Chitungo, the Hospital Director at Longonjo in Huambo Province, has sounded an alarm on the situation of children under the age of five.
A visit to the hospital by World Vision staff this week showed a desperate situation as the hospital is running out of its food reserves like milk and nutritious supplements, due to an increasing number of malnourished children arriving at the feeding centre of the hospital.
“Government is trying hard to replenish food stuffs but it is being overwhelmed by the demand of supplementary food to almost all hospitals in provinces hit by the drought” said Dr. Almeida Chitungo. “We need partners to urgently come to our rescue with supplies of supplementary food like milk and flour, otherwise children’s lives are at stake here,” he added.
Julia Campos, a World Vision nutritionist based in Huambo, says malnutrition is spreading across the province, especially in rural areas, thus putting the lives of thousands of children in in danger.
“It is a worrisome situation to see this level of human suffering. We are seeing high levels of malnutrition among children which will obviously lead to high mortality rate,” Julia Campos lamented emotionally.
“We urgently need medical supplies, supplementary nutritious food and milk for the critically malnourished children as a short term measure. For the longer term, need medicines, funds for training the communities on food production, processing and utilization so that this situation does not recur again,” Julia adds.
World Vision Angola is working in areas hit hard by the drought in Huambo, Kwanza Sul, Bié, Benguela and Huila. The organisation has developed a US$ 1.8 million drought recovery project aimed at increasing the resilience of farming systems.
According to World Vision Angola Operations Director Jonathan White, the project’s focus is to improve smallholder farmer productivity and sustainable systems for the supply of seeds of improved crop varieties supported by technical assistance.
“We are targeting 40,000 food insecure families (224,000 people) seriously affected by the 2011/12 drought, 100 farmer organizations and 10 agricultural input suppliers and seed enterprises. What we need is funding for the project to roll out,” Jonathan explained.
In mitigation to the current situation, World Vision is working with partners like the Ministry of Agriculture, the Institute for Agronomic Investigation, the Institute for Agrarian Development, National Seed Services, World Vegetable Centre, the International Potato Centre, and International Centre for Tropical Agriculture and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture.
Global risk consultancy Maplecroft last year ranked Angola as fifth in the world for unstable food supplies, placing it among troubled nations like Somalia.
The drought is making life even more difficult for Angola's poor, as production drops for staple crops like cereals, beans and sweet potatoes dwindled. The most affected are Angola's small farmers, who depend on rain for their crops to survive.
The impact of the drought on food security is for the most part evident in malnutrition levels thus putting immense pressure on local medical facilities.
According to a joint Government/UN assessment report, thousands of children are reported to be suffering from varying levels of malnutrition. The report further reveals that an estimated 366 780 households, approximately 1.8 million people, are affected by the protracted dry spell.