Record malnutrition: Africa’s Sahel region to have over 6 million wasted children in 2022, warn UN agencies

Over 900,000 young lives can be at risk in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal

Madhumita Paul

Down To Earth | April 14, 2022

Around 6.3 million children in the 6-59 months age group will suffer wasting in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Senegal in 2022, a new report warned. 

Over 1.4 million of these children in these six countries in Africa’s Sahel region will suffer severe wasting, United Nations agencies said in the report published March 2022. 

The number of children under five experiencing acute malnutrition will be the highest in 2022 for the region, the paper by West and Central Africa Regional Nutrition Working Group showed. 

COVID-19 and lessons from Ebola: How Senegal is confronting the challenge

by Adolphus Mawolo

Down To Earth | April 03, 2020

As the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak had the world scrambling for measures to curtail the spread, the West African country Senegal declared a state of emergency and imposed a dawn-to-dusk curfew on March 23, 2020.

The emergency is touted to remain in force for three months, subject to a review and predicated upon the situation at the expiration of this period.

At the time of the declaration, the country registered 86 confirmed cases — up from a single case three weeks earlier. The first such case was that of a French national resident who had returned to Dakar from France.