At a health clinic in Kenya’s Kinango district, a staff nurse and a mother talk about multi-micronutrient supplments for her child. Photo: Julia Suryantan
KINANGO DISTRICT, Kenya — In the dry and poor east Kenya district of Kinango, humanitarian worker Sammy Mutua watched and listened as mothers recounted how their small children, suffering from malnutrition, had been listless and had little appetite, but now were eating heartily after only one month of daily multi-micronutrient powder supplements (MNPs) sprinkled in their porridge.
Mutua, staff member with Church World Service in East Africa, traveled this month to the struggling, semi-arid districts of Kinango and Mwingi with CWS Global Health and Nutrition Advisor Julia Suryantan, accompanied by Francis Wambua, Assistant Chief Nutritionist Officer with Kenya’s ministry of medical services, to monitor progress in a new micronutrient supplement collaboration between CWS and the Kenyan government.
The program is providing MNP sachets as in-home fortification for children ages 6 – 24 months. The supplements are being distributed through Kenyan health clinics in Mwingi and Kinango, two areas with high rates of child malnutrition.
Suffering famine in the recent Horn of Africa crisis, the districts have been receiving food aid and therapeutic foods for severely and moderately malnourished children from the World Food Program and the Red Cross, such as Corn Soya Blend (CSB) flour and nutrient-dense Plumpy’nut, but have had no access till now to multi-micronutrient powder supplements that can be mixed into a child’s regular foods.
“In areas like Mwingi and Kinango, micronutrient programs are the critical intervention door opener to help affected toddlers whose brains and bodies are still developing — before their health and physical and cognitive development are permanently impaired,” Mutua said.
“But MNP supplementation can’t stand alone. Even if malnourished children are getting micronutrient supplements now, they need to maintain their healthy nutritional status. In part, that calls for greater family awareness about nutrition,” he said.
“For the long-term, villages need help to develop water for life resources, climate-resilient agriculture and enduring food security.”
Suffering from multi-year crop failures and failed rains, no rivers or streams are flowing in Kinango now. Development of dams and household-level water harvesting resources are insufficient to meet demands. Mutua said CWS already is providing water resource and food security assistance in some parts of Mwingi, but not yet in Kinango.
“Tackling the child malnutrition crisis is the immediate assignment. We hope to do more.”
Yet, for now, in both districts, one month into the micronutrient program, “We are starting to see impact,” said nutritionist officer Wambua.
“From my own perspective, this is a good program and has come at the right time for Kinango and Mwingi in addressing multi-micronutrient deficiencies.”
Kinango: 70 percent anemia
According to Wambua, in Kinango, considered poor even by regional standards, close to 70 percent of both children and pregnant and lactating mothers suffer from anemia, one of the factors at play in malnutrition.
“If we can continue this micronutrient program, for sure we will see a huge impact in these districts,” Wambua said.
He said results of a new government survey on Kenya’s nutritional status is expected soon and the ministry has “developed a national nutrition action plan that clearly outlines strategies to combat macro- and micro-nutritional deficiencies.”
Wambua also underscored the need to build awareness of nutrition and micronutrients across communities, a need echoed by CWS’s Mutua and Suryantan, along with the need for more outreach to affected families.
“To reach their district facility for child monitoring and a month’s supply of MNPs, many mothers have to walk up to 30 kilometers carrying small, often ill, babies, usually with other small children in tow. It’s an incredible challenge,” Suryantan said.
Kinango nutritionist Mbesa Kimeu said nearly 80 percent of the district’s children aren’t reaching facilities for help, “and they are probably the most at-risk children.”
USAID is funding health care outreach in Kenya that also includes the two high-risk districts, but Suryantan and nutritionists in both Kinango and Mwingi agreed, “The outreach now needs to be expanded and to include MNP distribution.”
For more, see Bringing nutrition awareness home in Kenya’s famine-scarred Kinango:www.churchworldservice.org/kinango