Abstract
Acute malnutrition affects nearly 52 million of under five years children globally, 75% of them live in low to middle income countries. The treatment of acute malnutrition using supplement foods could help children recovering and could reduce the risk of sickness. The present study investigated the factors associated with recovery among children with moderate acute malnutrition (MAM) under a follow-up program at health facilities. A prospective study was conducted in 16 health centers of Kirehe District of Rwanda and included 200 children from 6 to 59 months. A semi-structured questionnaire was used for data collection. All children enrolled in the study spent three months in nutrition program at health centers. The results show that after 3 months in the program 77.5% recovered from MAM. Children aged above 36 to 59 months were recovered at 90% whereas children aged from 24-35 months were recovered at 73.5%. Micronutrients and deworming provided at health facility were contributed to the recovery as children who received them were recovered at 89.1% and for those who didn’t were recovery at 72.1%. The findings demonstrated that boys were 16 times more likely to recover from MAM in three months of intervention than girls (AOR=16.19, p<0.001, 95% CI: 5.39- 48.63). Children from moderate income families were 3 more likely to recover than those from very low income families (AOR=2.8, p=0.029, 95% CI: 1.11-7.51). Male gender, receiving micronutrients and deworming from health facilities and family income status were factors associated with MAM recovery status
Highlights
Wasting or acute malnutrition affects nearly 52 million of under five years and among these wasted children, 17 million are suffering Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM)
By running the bivariate and multivariate analysis, it was documented that factors identified to influence moderate acute malnutrition (MAM) recovery were being male; earning monthly greater than RWF 5000 and micronutrients and deworming provided apart from foods supplements at health facilities were associated to the recovery of children from MAM
A recent study conducted in Malawi [8] showed that children with moderately wasted had significantly higher recovery rates after only 8 weeks using Ready to Use Foods (RUF) treatment (80%) than did those receiving Corn Soy Beans (CSB) (72%) this could be due to sharing practices more pronounced in CSB than RUF who was a recent product with specific guides
Summary
Wasting or acute malnutrition (moderate and severe) affects nearly 52 million of under five years and among these wasted children, 17 million are suffering Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM). Seventy-five (75%) of all those children suffering from malnutrition live in low to middle income countries while only one percent (1%) live in high income countries. These statistics show that malnutrition is a public health problem in Africa.East Africa was among three UN Sub regions with highest prevalence of MAM among all Nations Sub regions in 2011 and the second UN sub region with higher prevalence of stunting was South-Central Asia with 42% [2]. The CHSVA results show that 36.7% of under five children are stunted, down from 43% in 2012 and 8.1% of underweight compared to 12% in 2012 [3]. According to the Kirehe District Development Plan (2013-2018), chronic malnutrition is at 50.7% but the acute malnutrition is 1% [4]
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