Nutritional and health status of children during a food crisis--Niger, September 17-October 14, 2005.

Media attention in 2005 brought worldwide awareness to a food and nutrition crisis in the West Africa country of Niger (population 11.5 million in 2002). The United Nations World Food Programme estimated that 2.5 million persons living in farming and grazing areas in Niger were vulnerable to food insecurity (i.e., not having access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy lifestyle). Local surveys conducted in the Maradi and Tahoua administrative regions during April 2005 suggested critical levels (i.e., >15%) of global acute malnutrition (GAM) and greater mortality among Niger's estimated 2.7 million children aged <5 years than the emergency threshold (i.e., more than two deaths per 10,000 children per day). To help ensure a proportionate and timely response, the Government of Niger and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) collaborated with CDC to conduct an emergency survey that assessed the magnitude of malnutrition and recent illness among young children in Niger. This report summarizes the results of that survey, which determined that, among children aged 6-59 months, 15.3% had GAM; during the preceding 2 weeks, 72.0% had fever, and 49.1% had diarrhea. Among children aged 9-59 months, 33.7% had not been vaccinated for measles. Health officials in Niger took immediate action to improve availability of food, increase accessibility to medical treatment (for fever, diarrhea, and respiratory illness), and administer measles vaccinations along with vitamin A supplements to children who had not been vaccinated.