Malnutrition has claimed the lives of at least two children in the Bawku Municipal area, with 65 cases reported so far in 2024.
The ongoing conflict in the region has intensified the hardships faced by families, leading to a rise in severe malnutrition among children and anaemia in pregnant women.
Speaking to an Accra-based television station, Bathomio Asigri, the Bawku Municipal Health Nutrition Officer, revealed a sharp increase in malnutrition cases in 2023, with 297 cases recorded.
“Within the Bawku municipality, what we think could be the cause of these high cases that we are recording, could partly be blamed on the conflict, I am saying this because Bawku municipality is regarded as a business hub even within the Country.
“Unfortunately, within the past three years, a lot of trading activities are not going as they used to, so families are not in good standing as they used to be when it comes to their nutrition and their food security,” he revealed.
He explained that multiple surveys have been conducted to analyze the feeding patterns of residents in the municipality.
The results show that the decline in trading activities over the past three years has significantly reduced the number of meals people consume daily, potentially contributing to the high malnutrition rates in the area.
“We have done a lot of surveys and we have seen the number of meals taken before and after the conflict within some areas…we admit to the fact that the number of times they feed in a day has reduced and that in a way has a bearing on the number of cases that we are recording” he added.
