• The county screened 104,919 children for malnutrition.
• Some 183,982 children were given Vitamin A supplements.
Health officials in Mombasa have raised the alarm over increased cases of malnutrition among under-fives due to the Covid-19 crisis.
The crisis has compromised the quality of food given to children, hence malnutrition has been on the rise for the past six months. It has also hindered the uptake of vitamin A supplements and screening of malnutrition among under-fives.
Mombasa county nutrition coordinator Esha Bakari said they partnered with Unicef to distribute mid-upper arm circumference (Muac) tapes to women to monitor their children’s growth.
Muac tapes are predominately used to measure the upper arm circumference of children to help identify malnutrition.
“In the month of June, through Unicef, we were able to distribute 79,999 Muac tapes to women with children in all the six subcounties of Mombasa,” Bakari said.
The county screened 104,919 children during a one-week exercise. At least 335 children were found to have mild and moderate malnutrition and another 91 had severe and acute malnutrition.
In Changamwe, some 35,466 children were screened of whom 70 were found to have moderate malnutrition and another 17 had severe cases.
In Kisauni, Bakari said 24,989 children were screened and 93 children were found to have cases of mild malnutrition and another 19 had severe cases.
Likoni had 94 cases of moderate malnutrition and 41 severe malnutrition cases from 29,995 children who were screened, whereas Mvita had 78 mild cases and 14 severe ones from 14,470 screened.
At the same time, Bakari said they gave 183,982 children vitamin A supplements, despite the challenges brought about by Covid-19 restrictions.
Vitamin A supplements are usually given out in May and October, but the exercise had to be suspended throughout the country because of Covid-19.
"When Covid-19 happened, we were grounded. Everything came to a standstill. Throughout the country, vitamin A supplementation for children under five years was suspended. However, in Mombasa, we decided to engage health workers who went round to distribute the supplements under strict Covid-19 guidelines," Bakari said.