MALNUTRITION: "Severe and acute is welcomed"

ANDROKA, 19 May 2010 (IRIN) - No mother would ever want to be told her child has "severe acute malnutrition", but in parched southwestern Madagascar, 27-year old Donasine, mother of nine and four months pregnant, welcomes the nurse's diagnosis with a smile - the child will receive free life-saving treatment.Hundreds of desperate mothers and children have gathered at the government health centre in Androka, a town in the rain-starved Ampanihy district of the huge Indian Ocean island. It is Saturday, which is when the health staff - one nurse and an assistant - examine the nutritional status of children.The figures on the wall chart indicate that 2010 is going to be a very bad year: by mid-May admissions to the malnutrition rehabilitation centre had topped the combined totals for 2008 and '09, and at 117 seemed set to breach the '07 level - a notoriously bad year.Donasine had just arrived from Mahatsandry village - a two day journey by foot - to seek help for her emaciated youngest son, Ekavitse. "We are farmers, but without rain we were not able to grow anything. Every year I have another baby, and I am worried - I don't have anything to feed them," she told IRIN.Celestine Zafimanomjy, the nurse on duty, feared the numbers seeking treatment would rise in the coming months. "It's difficult to see such cases, but we will have more," he said. Ekavitse would be given Plumpy'nut, a ready-to-use therapeutic food for treating malnutrition.