Severe acute malnutrition remains a major
killer of children under five years of age. Until recently, treatment has
been restricted to facility-based approaches, greatly limiting its coverage
and impact. New evidence suggests, however, that large numbers of children
with severe acute malnutrition can be treated in their communities without
being admitted to a health facility or a therapeutic feeding centre.
The community-based approach involves
timely detection of severe acute malnutrition in the community and provision
of treatment for those without medical complications with ready-to-use
therapeutic foods or other nutrient-dense foods at home. If properly combined
with a facility-based approach for those malnourished children with medical
complications and implemented on a large scale, community-based management
of severe acute malnutrition could prevent the deaths of hundreds of thousands
of children.