The United Nations Children Emergency Fund, UNICEF, in collaboration with the Borno State Primary Health Care Development Agency have provided health and nutrition support for about 19,000 Internally displaced Persons, providing a permanent primary health care presence in Bama.
The town of Bama has been accessible to humanitarian assistance since March 2016 and UNICEF, working with our partners on the ground, has been working in Bama since then, primarily in the IDP camp in the town that houses approximately 25,000 people who have been displaced by the conflict. Of these, 15,000 are children.
Doune Porter, UNICEF’s Chief of Communication officer, said in a statement that “We are seeing an average of 140 outpatients a day: providing treatment primarily for malaria, respiratory infections and diarrhoea; screening for malnutrition and treating severely malnourished children, as well as providing Vitamin A, micronutrient supplements and deworming tablets.
“Most recent data available from the team on the ground, which does not have regular means of communication, show that during the period 3 April – 31 May 2016, 323 children were admitted for treatment for Severe Acute Malnutrition – an average of six new cases per day.”
Doune Porter said the agency has repaired and upgraded five boreholes in Bama, providing 10-12 litres of water per day per person in the IDP camp.
In the following days, he says construction work would begin on 150 latrines, just as it has also identified 3,000 children who have become separated from their families and have started to register children with the aim of trying to trace their families.
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