Overview

Severe acute malnutrition remains a major killer of children under five years of age.

About 55 million children are wasted, of whom 19 million have severe acute malnutrition.

However, it is possible to reduce mortality rates substantially by modifying treatment to take account of the physiological and metabolic changes that occur in cases of severe malnutrition. Case fatality rates have decreased to below 5% in treatment centres applying an appropriate management scheme recommended in WHO guidelines.

This training course on hospital-based care of severely malnourished children has been developed based on the WHO manual on Management of severe malnutrition: a manual for physicians and other senior health workers (1999). It responds to the urgent need to reduce paediatric deaths related to severe malnutrition in many developing countries and it is intended for health personal working at central and district level, including physicians, nurses and nutritionists.

This training course should be properly combined with a community based approach.