By Gabriel Ameh
Abuja — Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has released its 2025 Nigeria Activity Report, revealing a worsening humanitarian and healthcare crisis driven by rising malnutrition, recurring disease outbreaks and persistent maternal health challenges across several states in the country.
The report, launched in Abuja on Tuesday, highlighted how economic hardship, insecurity, displacement, flooding, inflation and weak healthcare systems continue to push vulnerable communities deeper into crisis.
MSF, which has operated in Nigeria since 1996, said it expanded medical interventions across ten states in 2025, including Bauchi, Borno, Cross River, Ebonyi, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto and Zamfara, while also establishing a new presence in Kaduna State. Emergency responses were also carried out in Niger and Adamawa states.
According to the report, MSF teams treated more than 440,000 children for malnutrition, over 300,000 people for malaria and assisted more than 33,500 deliveries in some of Nigeria’s most underserved and conflict-affected communities.
Malnutrition Reaches Record Levels
MSF said malnutrition cases have continued to rise sharply across northern Nigeria since 2022, with 2025 recording the highest admissions seen by the organisation in recent years.
The organisation disclosed that 353,989 children suffering from severe acute malnutrition were treated through outpatient programmes, while another 90,723 children with serious complications were admitted into inpatient stabilisation centres supported by MSF.
MSF Country Representative in Nigeria, Dr Ahmed Aldikhari, described the figures as alarming.
“The 2025 data tells a harrowing story,” he said. “With over 440,000 children placed on treatment, this is the highest number of malnutrition admissions we have recorded in Nigeria in recent years.”
He explained that malnutrition continues to fuel the spread and severity of diseases such as measles, malaria and diphtheria, especially among children in communities with poor access to healthcare services.
MSF attributed the worsening nutrition crisis to conflict, insecurity, displacement, repeated flooding and drought, rising food prices and cuts in humanitarian funding, all of which have reduced families’ ability to access food and medical care.
Disease Outbreaks Continue Across States
The report also showed that Nigeria continued to battle recurring outbreaks of infectious diseases in 2025, including cholera, Lassa fever, meningitis, measles, diphtheria and typhoid fever.
MSF teams treated 341,239 malaria patients, 38,753 children for measles, 6,123 diphtheria patients and 985 meningitis cases across several MSF-supported facilities nationwide.
The organisation warned that repeated disease outbreaks are worsening malnutrition among children, creating what it described as a dangerous cycle of illness and vulnerability.
To manage seasonal outbreaks, MSF said it worked alongside federal and state health authorities to strengthen emergency medical responses, support vaccination campaigns, improve disease surveillance, distribute mosquito nets and reinforce healthcare personnel and medical supplies.
Dr Aldikhari stressed that many of the diseases affecting communities are preventable through improved immunisation, clean water systems, sanitation and timely medical intervention.
Maternal Mortality Still a Major Concern
The report further raised concerns over Nigeria’s high maternal and newborn mortality rates, particularly in rural and conflict-affected communities where women continue to face barriers to quality healthcare.
In 2025 alone, MSF assisted 33,590 deliveries, conducted 119,469 antenatal consultations and carried out 224 fistula surgeries across its supported facilities.
The organisation said many women still arrive at health facilities with life-threatening complications caused by delayed access to emergency care, including severe bleeding, obstructed labour, infections and eclampsia.
MSF called for urgent investment in primary healthcare, emergency maternal services, referral systems, staffing and medical equipment to reduce preventable maternal and newborn deaths across the country.
