March 23, 2022

Safe and dependable outpatient treatment for infants experiencing malnourishment

Global WACh is pleased to feature a new publication: “Community-based management of acute malnutrition for infants under 6 months of age is safe and effective: analysis of operational data” by Global WACh faculty Dr. Indi Trehan and UW coauthors Drs. Maeve M Woeltje and Mark J Manary, was featured in Public Health Nutrition December 2021 edition. The study utilized operational data from outpatient feeding clinics in Malawi, which was analyzed in order to evaluate the success of infant recovery under the community-based management of acute malnutrition (CMAM) model.

The study serves to establish safe and dependable outpatient treatment methods for infants under 6 months old experiencing malnourishment. These methods can be employed to narrow the gap of treatment for infants unable to undergo inpatient treatment due to social and economic barriers. Due to the observed success of these treatments, this publication has the potential to influence WHO guideline revision on the management of wasting, as it opens up a new avenue of care for wasted infants.

The next steps for this study is to undergo the grant application for an Randomized Control Trial to more rigorously test the methods in this analysis. 

Read the latest issue here.