Saving 10-year-old Abdi

When Abdi Haji arrived at IMC’s stabilization center in Ethiopia’s East Hararghe Zone, he was slipping toward death. Ten-year-old Abdi was so small and malnourished he looked to be half his age. Marfia Mamo, IMC’s nurse and nutrition program coordinator, remembers Abdi at that time was “skin and bone.”

And Abdi’s mother, Fetiya Abudulahi, says: “I was afraid that my son would die.”

PHOTO: Margaret Aguirre Ten-year-old Abdi was severely malnourished when he came to IMC's stabalization center.

Fetiya, who has five other children, recalls one of IMC’s outreach workers came to her home and discovered that Abdi was suffering from severe malnutrition. The IMC worker helped get Abdi to the stabilization center, where doctors determined that he also had contracted tuberculosis.

“It has been three weeks since I came here and Abdi is getting better and better,” says Fetiya.

In recent years, recurring drought in Ethiopia has had a devastating impact on the local population’s nutritional well-being, overall health and economic stability. In response to this mounting crisis, IMC has been successfully implementing emergency nutrition and health programs to minimize the effects of the drought.

Key to IMC’s efforts is its community-based therapeutic care program, which provides villagers—many of whom live far from health facilities—with access to therapeutic feeding by identifying the early warnings signs of malnutrition and responding with treatment.

In East Hararghe, more than two million people are expected to benefit from IMC’s emergency health response programs, which have been implemented in eight woredas (provinces). Currently, more than 600 children are enrolled in the region’s outpatient therapeutic programs.

“It is a very challenging task that requires long travels everyday,” says IMC’s Marfia Mamo. “But it is about the outcome which is fruitful. We are overcoming our exhaustion by looking at the healthy children that are discharged after treatment.”

Since December 2005, nearly 3,500 severely and moderately malnourished people were admitted to the program and about 2,800 have been successfully treated. More than 100 Ethiopian Ministry of Health staff members were trained to treat malnourished children and those younger than five who have had medical complications. In addition, IMC has trained some 1,000 community volunteers.

“I have been here for five years,” said Muluka Umer, Lai Clinic supervisor. “We learned the basics about how to treat malnourished children, but we were not able to practice it. IMC has created a good opportunity for the children as well as for us. Our nurses and health staff are being trained. We are working hand-in-hand with IMC nurses.”