Therapeutic Nutrition for Children with Severe Acute Malnutrition: Summary of African Experience

Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) iscommon in sub-Saharan Africa, withapproximately 3 % of children under fiveaffected at any one time, it is also associated with several hundred thousand child deaths each year. Between 1950 and 2000, efforts to treat these children as inpatients in district hospitals or clinics failed to address the problem; mortality rates amongst those undergoing treatment remained extremely high at 20-30 % and unchanged from those seen in the 1950s(1), and only a tiny proportion of those in need were able to access care(2). Over the same period, every time a major crisis emerged in Africa, relief agencies established inpatient feeding centres to treat the large number of children requiring care. During the 80s and 90s, research into rehabilitation diets rapidly allowed these centres to lower mortality rates amongst those treated to <10%