The International Medical humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières, also known as Doctors Without Borders (MSF), working in Bauchi state, has introduced strategies that aims to improve access to healthcare for vulnerable populations in remote areas by bringing essential services closer to home.
The outgoing Head of Mission of MSF in Nigeria, Adam Ousmane Ngari, who disclosed this in a chat with journalists in Bauchi, said the organisation started the integrated community case management (iCCM) approach in eight villages in Ganjuwa LGA.
“The ICCM approach trains and supports community health workers (CHWs) to diagnose and treat common childhood illnesses like malaria, pneumonia, and diarrhoea at the community level.” Ngari said.
Additionally, the MSF Head of Mission said they have also introduced what he described as “family-led MUAC.” This approach, he explained, involves teaching parents how to screen their children at home for malnutrition.
“We introduced the family-led MUAC approach, enabling mothers and caregivers to detect early signs of malnutrition in their children using a user-friendly MUAC tape”, Ngari said.
This initiative transferred a previously health-worker-only role to families in the communities, empowering them to take proactive care of their children's health and take them to the hospital early when they noticed signs of malnutrition.
The mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) measure is a simple method of using a tape to measure the circumference of the mid-upper arm of a child to identify if the child is at risk of malnutrition.
One of the challenges faced by the organisation, according to Ngari, is late presentation to the hospital, and most children they admit to their facility have additional complications alongside malnutrition, such as kwashiorkor with skin lesions or respiratory tract infections, malaria, which makes it harder to treat malnutrition.
It is essential to detect children with nutritional problems early on, as malnutrition is a major cause of mortality among children.
In Bauchi state, MSF, in collaboration with the state ministry of health, works towards tackling malnutrition in the state. The organisation operates a 250-bed inpatient feeding centre in Kafin Madaki in Ganjuwa Local Government Area, where they provide medical care to children suffering from malnutrition. During malnutrition peak times, the 250-bed capacity can be increased to 350 to accommodate the overflow of malnourished children. In addition, MSF run three outpatient activities in Kafin Madaki, Kafin Liman, and Miya primary healthcare centres.
From January to April this year (2025), the organisation attended to 27,868 children suffering from malnutrition, representing a 34.5% increase from the 20,721 children seen in the same period in 2024. However, admissions for hospitalisation have decreased by 4.8% compared to the same period in 2024.
MSF runs nutrition projects in seven states in Nigeria: Borno, Bauchi, Katsina, Kano, Sokoto, Zamfara, and Kebbi. This involves ten inpatient facilities and over thirty outpatient feeding centres across these states to treat children with moderate and severe malnutrition.
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