Severe Acute Malnutrition Treatment

In India, Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) is amongst the top causes of deaths for children under five years of age. The current official treatment protocol for SAM in our country is facility-based approach or F-SAM, which in a lay men’s term is where SAM children with medical complications are treated at a facility. The number of SAM children with medical complications are close to 10-15% of the total SAM children, the question here is, how the rest of the 85-90% of SAM children without medical complication are treated? The answer is they are left at the community level, to be taken care by angawadi’s and at home. Why is that a problem you ask? These 85-90% of children are 9 times more likely to die as compared to a healthy child. It is very important to provide treatment for uncomplicated severe acute malnutrition at the community level as well.