Nearly 6.4 million Nigerian children aged between zero and 59 months are suffering from acute malnutrition, including about two million cases of severe acute malnutrition, the Federal Government has disclosed.
The alarming figure emerged in Abuja as the Federal Government, the United Nations and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) called for increased investment in Nigeria’s health system and stronger preventive measures to tackle the interconnected challenges of hunger, disease, displacement, insecurity and limited access to healthcare.
The disclosure was made during an event marking 30 years of MSF’s medical and humanitarian operations in Nigeria.
MSF revealed that its teams treated hundreds of thousands of children for acute malnutrition in 2025, reflecting the scale of the nutrition emergency confronting communities across the country.
The humanitarian organisation said its interventions had also covered malaria, maternal and newborn healthcare, vaccination, surgery and responses to disease outbreaks and emergencies linked to conflict and displacement.
Representing the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator George Akume, the Permanent Secretary, Ecological Project Office, Dr Aishetu Mohammed, described MSF’s three decades of operations in Nigeria as a record of “compassion, humanity, solidarity and service to people in need.”
She said the organisation had played an important role in communities affected by conflict, displacement, disease outbreaks, malnutrition and other emergencies.
Mohammed added that MSF’s experience in emergency response, maternal and child healthcare, nutrition and disease control offered important lessons for strengthening Nigeria’s health system.
Representing the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Senator Abubakar Atiku Bagudu, the Director of Internal Cooperation, Dr Sampson Ebimaro, said MSF treated more than 444,000 children for malnutrition in 2025, including more than 353,000 through outpatient feeding programmes and over 90,000 in stabilisation centres.
He said the organisation also treated more than 341,000 malaria patients, assisted over 35,590 deliveries and performed 224 fistula surgeries, while responding to outbreaks of cholera, measles, diphtheria and Lassa fever.
Ebimaro stressed that the government’s responsibility was not simply to receive humanitarian assistance, but to ensure that such interventions strengthened the capacity of Nigerian institutions to respond to future emergencies.
“The ultimate measure of our success is not how many interventions we deliver, but whether we build the capacity of Nigerian institutions to deliver those interventions and sustain them whenever MSF decides to hand over operations to the host state,” he said.
He also cited MSF data indicating a sharp increase in measles cases in Zamfara in 2025 compared with the previous year, while treatment centres in Sokoto recorded peak bed occupancy of 183 per cent and an 8.1 per cent mortality rate among admitted children.
The figures highlight the close relationship between malnutrition and weaknesses in essential healthcare services.
Malnutrition compromises children’s immune systems and increases their vulnerability to infections. MSF has reported that children presenting at its nutrition facilities in northern Nigeria frequently suffer from illnesses including measles, diphtheria and malaria.
The crisis has been particularly severe in parts of northern Nigeria, where insecurity, displacement, poverty, food insecurity and inadequate access to healthcare have placed additional pressure on vulnerable households.
The United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator (a.i.), Elsie Attafuah, said the significance of MSF’s 30-year presence in Nigeria should ultimately be measured by the lives saved.
She noted that MSF had treated more than 400,000 children for acute malnutrition in 2025 while supporting maternal and newborn care, nutrition services and treatment for noma, a disease associated with extreme poverty and malnutrition.
Attafuah, however, cautioned that humanitarian assistance should not become a substitute for long-term recovery and development.
“A rebuilt home needs clean water, a reopened clinic needs trained staff and medicines, and a family returning to farming needs safety and access to markets,” she said.
She called for greater coordination between humanitarian, development and peacebuilding interventions, while emphasising the need to protect MSF’s independent, impartial and neutral medical operations.
The MSF Country Representative, Dr Ahmed Aldikhari, said the organisation began its operations in Nigeria in 1996 in response to a meningitis epidemic in Kano, Bauchi and Katsina states.
Three decades later, its activities have expanded to maternal and child healthcare, nutrition, vaccination, surgery, tuberculosis and HIV care, as well as emergency responses to conflict, displacement and disease outbreaks.
Aldikhari said, however, that MSF could not resolve Nigeria’s health challenges alone.
“We cannot treat our way out of all of this, but we must try to prevent it,” he said, stressing that malnutrition, disease and displacement were interconnected problems requiring collective action.
The organisation has warned that the drivers of Nigeria’s nutrition crisis include food insecurity, inflation, inadequate healthcare infrastructure, insecurity, disease outbreaks and insufficient funding for nutrition interventions.
Representing the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, the Director-General of the National Orientation Agency, Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu, described MSF as a dependable partner whose interventions had contributed to healthcare delivery and community resilience.
The human cost of the crisis was also highlighted by Useni Usman, a survivor of noma, who recalled experiencing stigma and rejection before receiving free treatment and surgery at the Noma Children’s Hospital.
Usman said the intervention transformed his life. He later joined MSF to raise awareness about noma prevention in communities while pursuing a university degree.
“I never thought I would be able to stand before people like this,” Usman said, expressing gratitude for the support he received.
His experience underscored the broader message from the anniversary: while humanitarian organisations remain critical to saving lives and restoring dignity, sustainable progress will require stronger domestic health financing, functional primary healthcare, food security, disease prevention and local institutional capacity.
With nearly 6.4 million under-five children identified by the Federal Government as suffering from acute malnutrition, attention is increasingly shifting from emergency treatment to prevention.
Government officials, the UN and MSF agreed that Nigeria’s long-term response must address the conditions that drive malnutrition before children reach critical stages, while strengthening the health system to provide sustainable care for vulnerable communities.
