Childhood Malnutrition in post-earthquake Haiti

(Above) Cange, Haiti, A child suffering from malnutrition at the pediatric inpatient unit in Cange is fed  nourimanba by his mother.   Credit: Rebecca Rollins/PIH

While visiting patients in a rural village, a Partners In Health (PIH) community health worker spotted 14-month-old Lovena. Little Lovena had diarrhea, she was weak, and she had no appetite. With the encouragement of the health worker, her parents brought her to a PIH hospital. Her diagnosis was malnutrition.

This story is all too common. Malnutrition is a terrible disease that afflicts children in Haiti and around the world. It is a disease that stems from extreme poverty, but it is treatable and preventable. Thanks to your generous support, we are able to provide that treatment free of charge to children like Lovena. 

Lovena’s parents, who were very poor and lived about a two-hour walk from the hospital, didn’t understand the source of her sickness. It was severe acute malnutrition, caused by a shortage of the nutritious food toddlers require to grow up healthy. To help her recover quickly, we immediately provided Lovena with a ready-to-use locally produced therapeutic peanut butter packed with micronutrients, which we call Nourimanba.

She returned many times to the hospital to ensure she was healthy and growing. Recently, a doctor saw her for a simple cold and reported that she is now a healthy, active toddler. Without the treatment for malnutrition that Partners In Health provided, a simple cold could have easily killed her.

The prevalence of malnutrition in children around the world is unacceptable. It accounts for nearly half of all the deaths of children under 5 years old, which makes up a staggering 3 million deaths each year—or more than 8,000 every day.
These numbers are proof that we must do more to fight this needless suffering. Malnutrition is a sickness of poverty, and the children who are most affected often live in the most rural areas—far from health services and sources of steady
employment.

When I visit clinics in rural Haiti, up to half of the children I see are malnourished, placing them at much greater risk for other illnesses and even death. The effects, even if the child survives, can be long-term. Prolonged malnourishment can lead to cognitive and physical delays in development that make children less productive for the rest of their lives. These
setbacks make them less able to care for their own children, passing on the joint injustices of malnutrition and poverty.

With your help, Partners In Health has been fighting this disease in Haiti and in other countries we work to support. We’ve made great progress in the areas we serve, by using this simple innovation: therapeutic peanut butter packed with
micronutrients that we produce locally, to treat malnutrition effectively in clinics and in children’s homes. And we don’t stop at clinical care. In Haiti, we work with farmers to provide them with seeds and training to grow the peanuts for the Nourimanba peanut butter. Then, Partners In Health employs people to make the paste—a mixture of five
ingredients: peanuts, milk powder, vegetable oil, sugar, and vitamins. The product doesn’t require refrigeration and resists spoiling—making it the perfect treatment for children to take home with them to continue their recovery.

To save more lives, Partners In Health is scaling up production of Nourimanba in the same area our clinics serve in Haiti. Local production creates jobs, which helps the economy and prevents malnutrition.

Despite tremendous progress, we have more work to do. Partners In Health has committed to eliminating deaths of children under 5 years old from malnutrition in the areas we serve. This challenge will require reaching more of the most vulnerable families. It will require training more community health workers to identify children at risk, help
parents prevent malnutrition, and provide follow-up care in children’s homes. And it will require producing and distributing more therapeutic Nourimanba.  We hope that you continue to stand alongside us as we do whatever it takes to tackle this preventable illness. 

Thank you again for your support, 

Dr. Joia Mukherjee
Chief Medical Officer
Partners In Health