SAVE LIVES OF 600 MALNOURISHED CHILDREN IN UGANDA

1. Introduction

The opportunity of saving the lives of 600 malnourished children is progressing well as a key project at CFU. Malnutrition cases are still present in Uganda due to the high levels of poverty and high prices of foodstuffs in the urban areas as well as scarcity of food in the rural areas.  The main aim of Child and Family Foundation Uganda's (CFU) efforts is to solve the above challenge by delivering nutrition-specific interventions to all the intended beneficiary communities and individual households.

In the last Quarter, we trained more 6 Health workers on how they can screen for Malnutrition and they have greatly done the role during the home visits and community outreaches. These have increased the coverage of the project and the efforts felt by the underserved communities. Local community leaders have also taken part in the struggle by informing their people to embrace all the nutrition-specific interventions brought by CFU. 2 community dialogues were made in 3 divisions of Kampala district to discuss with the community leaders and residents how best we can solve the problem of Malnutrition in their areas.  

A total of 26 integrated community outreaches were conducted in the communities. Services included; Nutrition Assessments, Immunization, nutrition education, Vitamin A supplementation and deworming, and treatment of common sicknesses like Diarrhea which can lead to Malnutrition and death. We also worked with the top Health leadership in the districts to support health service-related activities.  A total of 7080 children were reached with the interventions   

 SUCCESS STORY

Twinowe (not real name), a 13-month-old male child was referred to CFU medical center by one of the community health workers trained by CFU in the previous quarter. This child had been passing out a watery stool for 4 days and her Mid-upper Arm Circumference (MUAC) was yellow.  The child was brought to CFU medical center for further assessments where the child was examined and diagnosed with Moderate Acute Malnutrition(MAM) and acute watery diarrhea.

On Assessment.

1. Mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC): 12.2cm (Y)
2. Weight: 7.8kg
3. Length: 71.8cm
4. Respiratory rate of 48b/min

Interventions

1. Oral Rehydration Salts (ORS) was given.
2. Zinc tablets
3. Blood smear to rule out Malaria.
4. Nutrition counseling message with the following topics:

• Ensuring proper Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) by boiling drinking water and its safe Storage.
• Maintaining proper sanitation at home to prevent diarrhea and other related diseases.
• Preparation of a balanced diet with locally available cheap foods
• Enriching home meals such as porridges.

During the follow-up visits as scheduled, Twinowe’s watery stool was subsidized, and he started improving gradually. Gaining weight as follows (7.8 kg, 7.9, 8.0, 8.2, and 8.4kg respectively) and the MUAC also increased (12.2 cm, 12.2, 12.4, 12.6cm Green, and 12.7cm respectively). With the above progress, Twinowe was then discharged from the Outpatient Therapeutic Centre (OTC), to be followed up by the trained Community health workers in-home visits.                                    

 Achievements

• Many children were reached with nutrition-specific interventions.
• The trained health workers started screening and referring malnourished cases for treatment.

 Challenges

• Some clients cannot afford even the cheap foodstuffs as taught during nutrition education.

 Lessons Learnt.

• The involvement of community leaders increases the effectiveness of the project.
• Timely referral for early interventions saves the client's life.
• Strengthening the Home visits ensures more clients are reached by the community health workers.

Conclusion

• Generally, a lot of children are benefiting from the project and many lives are being saved during the interventions. Thanks to the GlobalGiving community for the support and more is needed to make the project more successful.