The Ministry of Health of the Central African Republic is consulting its emergency operations partners after numerous cases of malnutrition and acute respiratory infections were detected near the town of Birao, some 1,100 km northeast of the capital, Bangui, a ministry official told IRIN on Monday. The ministry’s director of preventive medicine and disease control, Dr Abel Namssenmo, said that 73 children had died of malnutrition and respiratory infection between May and August in the village of Boromata, about 60 km west of Birao.