A group of medical practitioners, most of whom are pediatricians, wrote a letter to Indian Health Minister (HM) claiming to bring policies for Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) children that focus more on preventive measures than treating illness of malnourished children with ready to use therapeutic food (RUTF). What current data suggest about SAM and RUTF? SAM is a big problem in India. Around 30-40 malnourished children from Anganwadi are brought every month, of which 2-5 kids die due to SAM.
Few recent reports published suggest, due to RUTF, the under-five prevalence of stunting has reduced from 48% to 38.4%, underweight from 42.5% to 35.7%, but severe wasting has marginally increased from 6.4% to 7.5%. Why do doctors feel to bring this policy? To demand such policy by the practitioners may be the result of a recent multicentric trial carried out in India. This trial showed that there…
