MALNUTRITION IN THE HEALTH DISTRICT OF ABONG MBANG, CAMEROON

Introduction: Malnutrition still remains a major public health problem in Cameroon affecting mostly the Northern and Eastern regions of the country. Despite the interventions put in place by the government and other stake holders to eradicate poverty and ameliorate food security the problem still endures with severity changing with respect to space and time. This study was thus conducted with the objective to describe with respect to time and geographical locations the distribution of malnutrition amongst children in the Health District of AbongMbang taking into consideration the mechanisms already put in place for response. Methods: This study was a documentary investigation of the incidence of malnutrition using data amongst collected in the Health District of AbongMbang from January 2015 through June 2016. The various sources of data used include the monthly activity reports as well as the most recent integrated activity supervision and quality control reports. Results: The results of this study show a significant increase in the incidence of malnutrition in 2016 as compared with 2015. Also the health areas around the town had the tendency of reporting more cases than the rural health areas as well as there was a general problem of availability of resources in most of the health facilities as concerns malnutrition leading to a general weakness in the quality of services offered with respect to its response. Conclusion: The reported incidence of malnutrition in the Health District of AbongMbang is alarmingly increasing. There is the need to train the personnel on essential actions on malnutrition prevention while providing the resources needed and ensuring an effective implementation of the knowledge acquired through formative supervision. Also there is the need to vulgarize the organization of nutrition demonstration sessions in the communities using local foods by the above trained health personnel.