Source: VOA

Children Dying in Drought-Stricken Ethiopia

Peter Heinlein

Shashemene, Ethiopia

18 May 2008

Humanitarian agencies are rushing emergency aid to drought-stricken
central Ethiopia, where a sudden deterioration in food supplies has
led to surge of child mortality. At least 23 children have died at
hospitals and emergency feeding centers during the past three weeks,
and authorities say countless others have died at home for lack of
treatment. In this first of two reports from the hardest-hit area
around the town of Shashemene 250 kilometers south of Addis Ababa,
VOA’s Peter Heinlein reports conditions are expected to worsen over
the coming months.

Four out of five children in Ethiopia do not get life-saving health
care when they need it
Four out of five children in Ethiopia do not get life-saving health
care when they need it
It is bedlam inside a tent on the grounds of the Shashemene hospital.
Thirty severely malnourished children, their mothers, and assorted
other siblings are scattered over the bare ground, with nothing to do
but wait for the next feeding.

Three-year-old Chemeni is a tiny wisp of bony flesh with black eyes
wide as saucers. Her mother, Buqre Hussein softly strokes Chemeni’s
face, a younger daughter strapped to her back. She says her children
are among the fortunate ones.

“I am glad my children are recovering,” she said. “And I expect they
will recover. I am glad to see this.”

Every four hours, each child in the tent receives a red cup filled
with a high-nutrition supplement known as F-75. But Shashemene’s
regional health officer, Dr. Abebe Megerso says many more malnourished
children are having to be turned away.

“The supply is not enough because we did not know the problem is this
much overwhelming,”said Megerso. “And now as the people with problem
are appearing, the supply we have at hand is becoming short, and even
now, we do not have F-100 and F-75, particularly F-75 is very scarce now.”

This makeshift therapeutic feeding center was erected nearly three
weeks ago when health officials realized they had an emergency on
their hands.
Dr. Megerso says regional health officials tried to prepare for the
effects of the drought, but could not imagine the shortages, and the
flood of malnourished children, would be this bad.

“It is unusual,” he said “We have never had problem before because
this zone is known by surplus production We are simply admitting the
severely malnourished ones, and we are referring the children with
high complications to hospital. But we cannot refer all of them to
hospital because we can create high overcrowding in hospital and we
are not well prepared.”

Ethiopian officials last month issued an international appeal for
enough emergency food aid for two-point-two million people. But U.N.
agencies say at least three-point-four-million people, and possibly
many more, are already severely affected by the drought.

Viviane Van Steirteghem, deputy country director for the U.N.
Children’s Agency, UNICEF, says tens of thousands of children are in
danger of starvation.

“We estimate now, and this is a best estimate, that 126,000 children
over the country are in immediate need of this therapeutic care to
avoid mortality,” said Viviane Van Steirteghem.

The United States provides the bulk of the food aid to Ethiopia. The
U.S. Congress approved an additional $100 million of aid this month,
boosting the total for the year to more than $300 million.

But the U.N. World Food Program estimates 395,000 metric tons of food
will be needed to get through the immediate crisis. That will cost
$147 million more than is currently available.

The WFP’s Lisette Trebbi says the way conditions are deteriorating,
the month of June is going to be especially difficult.

“We have new donations coming in, but it is a question of timing,”
said Lisette Trebbi. “And we therefore foresee we will have some
shortfalls… during the month of June, which will be a critical
month, for the population, because they will still not have recovered,
we anticipate the crisis to get worse, so we are taking every measure
that we can, we are short and will probably have to prioritize the
worst and most affected area.”

There has been some rain in central Ethiopia in recent weeks; not
enough to produce the desperately needed bumper harvest in September,
but enough to spark fears of an outbreak of water-borne diseases among
a weak and vulnerable population.

Officials here are predicting many difficult months ahead.