Ten-month-old twins lie next to their mother, Zuwaira, on a hospital bed in Kano, northwest Nigeria: Safwan is asleep at her side while Safuna receives a blood transfusion.
At the inpatient therapeutic feeding center at the Unguwa Uku Primary Health Care Center, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is offering critical treatment to children like Safuna who are suffering from malnutrition. She is one of the over 40,000 children treated for malnutrition in Kano in 2024.
Northern Nigeria is experiencing high rates of both malaria and malnutrition, and MSF calls on health authorities, international organizations, and donors to increase their efforts to address the escalating crises.
Malaria and malnutrition are especially dangerous for children
The children brought to MSF-supported facilities primarily come for malnutrition treatment, but upon screening, most are found to also have malaria.
From January to May 2024, about 9,000 out of the 14,000 children diagnosed with malnutrition tested positive for malaria after screening. Malaria and malnutrition have a complex relationship, each increasing the risk of the other, which can lead to a cycle of malnutrition and malaria that can be especially harmful to children under 5 years old.
“Malaria can reduce the appetite and make it harder for the body to absorb nutrients, leading to malnutrition,” says Dr. Yanu Mbuyi, MSF medical coordinator in Nigeria. “Conversely, malnutrition can weaken the immune system, making children more susceptible to infections like malaria.”
Malaria is one of the leading causes of death in Nigeria. According to the 2024 World Malaria Report, from the World Health Organization (WHO), Nigeria accounts for 26 percent of malaria cases globally. Kano state contributed an estimated 9 percent of Nigeria’s 68 million malaria cases in 2021 and 30 percent of admissions to Nigeria’s hospitals are because of malaria.
A disturbing rise in cases
Our teams in Kano have observed a distressing increase in the number of children suffering from malnutrition, as evidenced by the rise in admissions. In 2022, MSF treated 7,798 children for malnutrition; that number rose to 23,800 in 2023 and 46,304 in 2024.
“What we had in 2024 was a twin peak of malaria and malnutrition, with 36,546 confirmed cases of malaria, the highest number recorded since we started working in Kano,” says Dr. Hemmed Lokonge, MSF project coordinator in Kano.
In response to the rising rates of malnutrition, MSF expanded its operations by opening additional outpatient treatment facilities in Kumbotso and Rijiyar Lemo, in addition to the existing facility in Unguwa Uku. During the malnutrition crisis, the 75-bed inpatient facility in Unguwa Uku reached full capacity, prompting the opening of an additional 90-bed center at Murtala Mohammed Specialist Hospital. This was full in just two hours.
“Safuna is feeling better now compared to when I brought her here a few days ago,” Zuwaira says, having traveled over 25 miles from her home to access MSF services. “She was weak and could hardly move, but now she has more energy and can even laugh.”
The long-term malnutrition crisis
The persistent malnutrition crisis in northern Nigeria stems from a variety of factors such as inflation, food insecurity, insufficient health care infrastructure, ongoing security issues, and disease outbreaks worsened by low vaccine coverage.
Tackling acute malnutrition in northern Nigeria requires a multi-faceted approach. Immediate measures include strengthening health care facilities to diagnose and treat malnutrition. Additional steps involve reinforcing vaccine programs, enhancing access to nutritious food, improving water and sanitation, and raising awareness.
Since 2022, MSF has consistently raised concerns about the increasing number of children admitted for malnutrition at its facilities across northern Nigeria. In 2024, our teams treated over 357,000 children who were suffering from malnutrition in the facilities where we are working in the north. This is an increase of 35 percent compared to the 265,500 children treated in 2023. Among those treated in 2024, 75,000 required inpatient care, while 282,000 received outpatient treatment.
In 2024, the surge in malnutrition cases began as early as March, well before the usual peak season in July, and extended through November, a time when cases are typically expected to decline. This situation raises fears that the severity of malnutrition in 2025 could exceed that of previous years.
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MSF’s work in Kano
MSF activities in Kano began as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic and evolved to include general outpatient department support and response to the growing malnutrition crisis. Presently, MSF is the only organization providing inpatient therapeutic feeding services in Kano, with patients coming from 37 out of the 44 local government areas in the state, as well as from neighboring states.
Currently, MSF operates outpatient clinics in only three local government areas of Kano state: Tarauni, Fagge, and Kumbotso. This limited geographical coverage is significant, considering that Kano state is made up of 44 local government areas. It underscores the insufficient number of clinics available to address the high volume of children suffering from malnutrition.
In 2025, MSF's health promotion activities will shift focus to community education, empowering families to recognize early signs of malnutrition and address them before hospitalization is necessary.
MSF advocates for establishing outpatient feeding centers across all local government areas in Kano to enhance community-based management of malnutrition and reduce severe cases. It is essential that health authorities, international organizations, and donors intensify their efforts to address the escalating malnutrition crisis in Kano and throughout northwest Nigeria—a region currently lacking sufficient humanitarian response—to prevent further lives from being lost in 2025.
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