Document #2140773
MSF – Médecins Sans Frontières (Author)
As the rainy season comes to Zamfara, MSF is responding to worsening diseases, food insecurity, and more.
In northwestern Nigeria, the rainy season brings more than relief from the heat. It brings distress, disease, and preventable deaths.
Between May and September each year, daily survival becomes a struggle as flooding, outbreaks of infectious diseases, and worsening food insecurity converge. For communities already affected by years of insecurity, the consequences are devastating.
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) runs or supports four health care facilities across northern Nigeria that are treating the health issues worsened by the rainy season and food insecurity. Most of the illnesses and deaths during this season are preventable, but not everyone can access care when they need it.
In Zamfara state, years of armed violence — including kidnappings, village raids, cattle rustling, and ambushes — have uprooted tens of thousands of people, shattered livelihoods, and severely restricted access to essential services. Communities face overwhelming barriers to accessing health care due to poverty, insecurity, long distances, and weak health infrastructure. When the rain arrives, the already fragile health situation worsens.
“The rainy season affects the way we see patients,” explains Sani Adamu, nursing activity manager at an MSF hospital in Zamfara. “It increases the risks and transmission of many diseases like malaria, cholera, and other acute watery diarrheal diseases.”
As rainwater collects in stagnant pools, it creates ideal breeding grounds for mosquitoes. Malaria cases surge, cholera outbreaks erupt, and other waterborne illnesses like typhoid fever rapidly take hold, particularly among vulnerable groups such as pregnant women and children.
In 2025, MSF treated 136,778 patients for malaria and 13,877 for cholera in Zamfara.
“In places where sanitation is poor and water sources are unsafe, any contamination can spread quickly,” Adamu adds. “Flooding pushes waste, garbage, and fecal matter into water sources, spreading waterborne diseases. Children play in this water, households use it, and people fall sick. Poor sanitation and overcrowded living conditions further exacerbate this spread.”
For families like Rakiya’s in Shinkafi local government area, these risks are part of daily reality. Her grandson Auwalu fell seriously ill with typhoid fever after developing symptoms in February 2026.
“We took him to the hospital in Shinkafi,” she says. “We were told his intestines had been affected. They explained that unclean water and contaminated food can cause this.”
Auwalu developed severe complications and was referred to the MSF-supported General Hospital in Zurmi local government area for lifesaving surgery.
“Typhoid perforation is caused by bacteria transmitted through contaminated water or food,” explains Adamu. “Early treatment is crucial. When treatment is delayed, the intestine can perforate — a severe condition where the intestine ruptures. At that stage, complications can be fatal, and surgery is the only option.”
Rakiya’s grandson reached care in time, but many others arrive too late — or not at all — with often deadly consequences.
As the rains drive the spread of disease, they also coincide with the lean season: when household food stocks are exhausted and new harvests are still months away. Undernutrition weakens immune systems, making even common illnesses deadly, especially for children.
In Zamfara state, MSF treated 60,566 children for malnutrition in 2025.
“All groups are affected,” says Adamu, “but children under 15 and pregnant women are the most vulnerable.”
For many households already displaced by violence, this combination of hunger and illness has severe, life-threatening consequences.
With rising malnutrition and exposure to disease, timely access to health care is even more critical during the rainy season — but for many, it remains out of reach. Insecurity makes it difficult for people to move freely in the region, leaving some areas completely cut off. Health facilities are too far away, understaffed, or under-equipped. Flooded roads and damaged bridges further isolate communities, while the cost of transport and care forces many families to delay seeking treatment or rely on informal care.
For Saratu, whose daughter Jamila fell ill after repeated displacement, the simple act of seeking care has become an ordeal. The journey from her home to Shinkafi costs 10,000 naira [about $7.30] — money she barely managed to raise. Without it, she wouldn’t have been able to reach treatment.
“We live close to the river and sleep in the bush,” she explains. “We don’t have mosquito nets. During the rainy season, a lot of children get malaria. One child recovers, and another falls sick. Sometimes three of your children are ill at the same time, and you don’t know what to do.”
“Preventive action before and during the rainy season is critical,” Adamu says. “Strengthening community awareness, improving access to safe water and sanitation, and ensuring timely vaccination campaigns can all reduce the impact of diseases. Health facilities must also be properly equipped and supported to diagnose and treat patients quickly and effectively.”
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