Tackling the Health Crisis in Francophone Africa

Health workers, officials and humanitarians from 15 French-speaking sub-Saharan countries are meeting in Cameroon’s economic capital, Douala, to discuss chronic child malnutrition in the region. Many of the children in crisis have been displaced from Sudan and other conflict-ridden countries. Their chronic malnutrition, say those at the meeting, has been compounded by climate shocks that make food and safe water increasingly scarce in sub-Saharan Africa. “All United Nations agencies are very worried that several million children suffering from acute malnutrition in sub-Saharan Africa risk dying before they celebrate their fifth birthday,” said Simeon Nanama, UNICEF’s regional nutrition adviser for West and Central Africa. “Close to 7 million children affected by acute malnutrition are in dire need of help to save their lives.”

SOURCE: VOA