Improving the health of children

Ubah Mohamed Farah, a mother of two children, lives in Godobjiran town in Puntland. Ubah’s main source of income was a farm and a few goats but due to the prolonged drought in Puntland her farm is not able to produce much and some of her goats have died. Life for her has become difficult and she can hardly manage her family’s income. Her husband’s joblessness exacerbates the stress of being the sole provider for her family.

Lack of enough food for her family also affects the well being of her children. Eight-month-old Hawa, is Ubah’s youngest daughter. Her health has been fast deteriorating and Ubah did not know what to do. When she heard of the health services that World Vision provided on health from a community health worker, she immediately took her to the OTP (Outpatient Therapeutic Programme) health centre.

At the health centre, the child was diagnosed and found to be suffering from malnutrition and admitted at the centre. On admission, Hawa had a MUAC (Middle Upper Arm Circumference) of 11.2 cm, was weighing only 5 kgs and she was 74 cm long. Ubah was then given a weekly supply of 21 sachets of plumpy nuts and advised to visit the health centre regularly until Hawa was fully recovered.

As Hawa continuously fed on the plumpy nuts and visited the OTP centre regularly, she started improving.

“I am happy to see Hawa happy, healthy and strong. I did not expect to see this improvement. I am grateful to World vision and the team here for their support,” she excitedly says.

Four weeks after Hawa’s admission, she looked different and her physical appearance had tremendously changed. Her MUAC was at 12cm; and weighing at 7.4kgs and now was ready to be transferred to the TSFP (Targeted Supplementary Feeding Programme) for a follow up.

 Ubah with her eight month old daughter at the OTP centre

The whole family is happy and appreciates WV staff for the great service that they gave to Hawa when she needed it the most.

In October 2016, the government of Puntland declared a widespread drought emergency due to lack of rains in the past two seasons. Inconsistent Gu “long rains” provided only slight relief and the recovery from the drought has remained limited. Many locations in Somaliland and Puntland recorded below average rains that were sporadic and ended prematurely.

[1]The Somalia Food Security Outlook for October 2016 to May 2017 released by FSNAU estimated 1.37 million people will be in Crisis (IPC Phase 3) or higher between January and May 2017, representing a 25 percent increase from the its last estimation in post-Gu seasonal food security and nutrition assessment conducted between June and July.