The U.S Embassy in a statement in Abuja has announced the donation of $9.5 million to the United Nation’s World Food Program (WFP), as part of efforts to improve health care for pregnant women and children below the age of five in Borno State.

The fund was to guarantee that 175,000 mothers and children did not suffer from malnutrition during “lean” season in 2017.

It quoted U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID), Nigeria Mission Director Stephen Haykin as saying that “the grant was from USAID’s Health, Population, and Nutrition Office.

“In response to the call by WFP to meet a severe funding shortfall, USAID is pleased to play a part in making sure that the most vulnerable of those impacted by the Boko Haram conflict are taken care of.

“This support will go to nine areas where the needs of mothers and their children are the greatest”, he said.

Haykin said that the fund would help WFP reach additional 110,000 children under five and 65,000 pregnant and nursing mothers with specialised nutritious food commodities in nine local government areas in Borno.

“WFP launched what is known as a Blanket Supplementary Feeding Program aims to prevent the further decline in nutritional status among young children suffering from moderate acute malnutrition.

“It is also aimed at protecting the nutritional status of others who are not yet malnourished but are at high risk”, he said.

He said the programme would provide nutrient-rich food monthly through the end of the rainy, or “lean”, season in August.