Effect of Preventive Supplementation With Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food on the Nutritional Status, Mortality and Morbidity of Children
A study in Niger has shown that Short-term supplementation of nonmalnourished children with RUTF reduced the decline in WHZ and the incidence of wasting and severe wasting over 8 months
Ready-to-use therapeutic foods (RUTFs) are effective outpatient treatment of severe wasting but their effectiveness in population-based prevention of moderate and severe wasting has not been evaluated. This cluster randomised trial involved 6 villages randomised into invervention and 6 to non-intervention.
Intervention Children with weight-for-height 80% or more of the National Center for Health Statistics reference median in the 6 intervention villages received a monthly distribution of 1 packet per day of RUTF (92 g [500 kcal/d]) from August to October 2006. Children in the 6 nonintervention villages received no preventive supplementation.
The intervention resulted in a 36% reduction in the incidence of wasting and a 58% reduction in the incidence of severe wasting. There was no reduction in mortality, with a mortality rate of 0.007 deaths per child-year (7 deaths/986 child-years) in the intervention villages and 0.016 deaths per child-year (18 deaths/1099 child-years) in the nonintervention villages.
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