Therapeutic nutrition for children with severe acute malnutrition: Summary of African experience

Across Africa, Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) affects approximately 3% of children under five at any time and is associated with several hundred thousand child deaths each year. Since the 1950s, efforts to treat these children as inpatients in hospitals or clinics have failed to lower mortality rates and have achieved very poor coverage. During the past 10 years new community-based management approaches treating over 85% of SAM cases solely as outpatients using nutrient dense, lipid-based Ready to Use Therapeutic Foods have dramatically reduced mortality and increased coverage rates. In 2005, this new model was endorsed by the UN under the name Community-based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) and has now been adopted by over 25 National governments and all major relief agencies. By 2009, approximately 1 million cases of SAM were being treated annually, with programs expanding by approximately 30% year on year.