Haiti: MSF Teams Assess the Nutritional Situation Across the Country

Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) medical teams are currently assessing the nutritional situation in several areas of the country. Since November 4, MSF medical doctors have been screening children in the mountain area of Baie d'Orange and Belle Anse, where authorities had reported children dead because of malnutrition in the previous weeks.

A therapeutic feeding center was quickly put in place and about 100 children per day were screened. In the first two days of consultations 30 children were diagnosed as severely malnourished and 25 children as moderately malnourished. Some of the severely malnourished children were consequently referred to either MSF clinic in Martissant, in the capital city Port-au-Prince, or to other hospitals in the country. At present there are 14 severely malnourished children in MSF clinic in Martissant and one child has died.

More recently, screenings of children by our teams have shown much fewer critical cases and at present the situation in Belle Anse does not appear to be alarming. There seem to be pockets of severe malnutrition but these conditions existed prior to the hurricanes.

The teams are working throughout the country to continue investigating potential malnutrition hotspots.