Nigeria, Dec. 4 -- The fight for a child's life in Katsina State does not begin in a hospital bed; it sometimes begins on the road. By the time Aisha Rabe reached Katsina city from Sandamu, the midday sun had turned the air into a suffocating wall of heat.

Her five-month-old daughter lay limp against her chest, having gone two days without suckling. Fever had sapped every ounce of energy from her tiny body, and she had grown worryingly light in Mrs Rabe's arms, signs that point to severe malnutrition.

Inside the Inpatient Therapeutic Feeding Centre (ITFC) at the Turai Umaru Yar'Adua Maternity and Children's Hospital, the nurses barely glanced up as Mrs Rabe stumbled in. They were already running between beds, attending to children whose...