The women walked miles through the dusty streets of Maiduguri, in the northeastern corner of Nigeria, carrying their emaciated children. At 7 a.m., they began lining up to wait, for hours, to be handed a small, red packet containing a special paste that could bring their children back from the brink of starvation.
The children were eerily listless; they did not run, shout or even swat the flies off their faces. Their tiny, frail frames made many appear years younger than they were. Near the head of the line, Kaltum Mohammad clutched her two-year-old daughter, Fatima, who weighed just 16 pounds.
Women and children like these waited for treatments in the half-dozen camps and clinics visited by The New York Times last November. Now, six months into the United States’ withdrawal of foreign aid, many of the sites are closed, some permanently. At others that remain open, rooms once filled with boxes of the lifesaving packets are close to empty.
Starvation in Gaza has brought intense international attention to the horrors of famine, but less attention has been paid to a wider issue: the dismantling of U.S.A.I.D. has worsened the problem of severe hunger and malnutrition throughout the world.
Saving children with severe acute malnutrition is simple and inexpensive. Each packet costs less than 30 cents, but contains a high-calorie mix of peanuts, sugar, milk powder and oil — flavors appealing to children — and a blend of vitamins and minerals. A complete six-week treatment for a severely malnourished child runs to less than $45.
U.S.A.I.D. funded roughly half the world’s supply of ready-to-use therapeutic food, or R.U.T.F., purchasing some directly from American manufacturers and funding the United Nations Children Fund, or UNICEF, in order to manage its distribution.
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The post A $45 Treatment Can Save a Starving Child. US Aid Cuts Have Frozen the Supply appeared first on New York Times.
