Addressing Malnutrition Needs through Curative & Preventive Nutrition Services

Abrar, a 10-month-old child, has suffered from a severe acute malnutrition for a while. Abrar’s poor mother worried sick about her health condition. Many thoughts raced into her mind, most of which how to get her little sick daughter out of her misery. Unfortunately, the compassionate mother never realized that her daughter was severely malnourished.

Someday, Abrar’s mother ran out of patience. She stopped giving this matter some thought and started to take action. The poor mother decided to see a doctor. She went in a rush to the nearest health unit “Al-Aqsa”, which is fully support by RDP and in collaboration with WFP. It is located in As Silw district of Taizz governorate. Abrar’s mother waited anxiously to get to know the checkup result of her sick daughter from health workers.

Our health workers had taken Abrar’s MUAC screening the moment she stepped inside the health unit. Her MUAC showed 10.5, indicating a great deal of suffering from a severe acute malnutrition. The cute child (Abrar) had a positive appetite test, thus our nutritionist provided her with essential nutritional supplements. Abrar’s mother was advised that these nutritional supplements should be used within a week, and then she has to report back to the same health unit for a follow-up. The mother was however assured that her daughter would get a swift recovery over the suffering of malnutrition.

Within two months of constant follow-up, Abrar has been discharged from the OTP as well as the TSFP programs in the health unit. She has become a different child, a beautiful little girl unlike the one who came two months ago. The positive changes over her body can be seen. Her head is no longer thin as it was before. The growth of her hair has been improved. Her MUAC has become 14, indicating how healthy her nutritional status is. Abrar’s mother couldn’t be happier to see such remarkable changes in her little cute daughter.

Since then, Abrar was brought by her mother to be enrolled in the BSFP program, receiving monthly nutritional supplements of P.Doz in order to prevent further deterioration of malnutrition. Thanks for the great and considerable support WFP has done to provide us with life-saving curative treatment and preventive nutrition services to help hundreds of vulnerable children sustain their lives in hard-to-reach areas.