In southern Ethiopia, nearly 40 thousand people over the last four months have been treated for malnutrition and received ready-to-use therapeutic food from Medici Senza Frontiere (Msf) which has included 24 thousand people suffering from acute malnutrition in its nutritional schemes. Patients, states the humanitarian organisation, "are mainly small children: on average 2 patients out of 10 are five years old, but in some areas of the country one third of children under five years of age are moderately malnourished". Msf is changing its strategy all the time, depending on new emergencies: new nutritional schemes have been opened, and more have been closed where the number of malnourished people has decreased. In the Afar region, "the number of malnourished people has reached 9%. Over 60 Msf nutritional centres provide medical care and ready-to-use therapeutic food to severely malnourished patients", explains Renzo Fricke, coordinator of the emergency scheme against malnutrition in southern Ethiopia. 3 thousand tons of food have already been distributed. "For children suffering from major forms of malnutrition he warns the treatment has been effective. For the moderately malnourished ones, the start of the plan has reduced the occurrence of new severe cases”.
