The FANTA web site is made possible through the support provided by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) under terms of the cooperative agreement AID-OAA-A-12-00005 awarded to FHI 360. The information provided on this web site is not official U.S. Government information and does not represent the views or positions of USAID or the U.S. Government.

Strengthening and Evaluating the Preventing Malnutrition in Children under 2 Approach (PM2A) in Burundi: Baseline Report (2012)

This report presents the findings from the first of three cross-sectional baseline surveys to evaluate the impact of the Tubaramure program, a Preventing Malnutrition in Children under 2 Approach (PM2A) program being implemented in eastern Burundi. Tubaramure, a United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Title II food aid development program, has three core components: distribution of family and individual food rations; required participation of beneficiaries in a behavior change communication (BCC) strategy focused on improving health- and nutrition-related behaviors; and required use of preventive health services for pregnant and lactating women and children under 2 years of age.

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Testing the Growth Promoting Effect of Long-Term Complementary Feeding of Infants with a High-Energy, Micronutrient Fortified Spread (2012)

The low nutrient and energy content of complementary foods in low-income countries has been associated with growth faltering, increased morbidity, and delayed motor milestone acquisition. Complementation of diet in infancy and early childhood with lipid-based nutrient supplements (LNS) that have high nutrient and energy density has been suggested to improve growth and might also reduce morbidity. FANTA conducted a trial in rural Malawi to compare the incidence and prevalence of very severe linear growth failure and symptoms of common childhood illnesses among infants receiving dietary supplementation with milk-LNS, soy-LNS, a corn-soy blend (CSB), or nothing.

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Getting the Knack of NACS: Highlights from the State of the Art (SOTA) Meeting on Nutrition Assessment, Counseling and Support (NACS) (2012)

Recognizing the importance that food and nutrition interventions play in the global response to the HIV pandemic, many countries have integrated food and nutrition components into their national HIV services and programs. Nutrition assessment, counseling, and support (NACS) is an approach for integrating nutrition care into existing health care services.  In February 2012, CORE Group and partners hosted “Getting the Knack of NACS,” a two-day state-of-the-art (SOTA) meeting aimed at taking stock of progress since the 2010 Jinga, Uganda NACS meeting, examining the evidence base to date and further advancing the SOTA on NACS in the context of HIV and health care more broadly.  The meeting report Getting the Knack of NACS: Highlights from the State of the Art Meeting on Nutrition Assessment, Counseling and Support (NACS) gives an excellent overview of NACS and results of the meeting.

Read the report on the CORE Group website

Clinical Trial Evaluating the Need for Routine Antibiotics as Part of the Outpatient Management of Severe Acute Malnutrition (2012)

FANTA undertook a clinical trial comparing nutritional recovery and mortality outcomes in children with severe acute malnutrition (SAM) receiving 1 week of amoxicillin, cefdinir, or placebo, in addition to usual ready-to-use-therapeutic food therapy. This report documents the outcomes of the trial, which clearly showed the benefit of using antibiotics in the outpatient treatment of SAM without medical complications.

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Household Food Insecurity and Nutritional Status of Women of Reproductive Age and Children under 5 Years of Age in Five Departments of the Western Highlands of Guatemala: An Analysis of Data from the National Maternal-Infant Health Survey 2008–09 of Guatemala (2012)

In 2008–2009, a nationally representative reproductive health survey, the National Maternal-Infant Health Survey (ENSMI), was conducted in Guatemala, and, for the first time, a food-security module was included. As the ENSMI survey also collected nutritional data on women of reproductive age and children under 5 years of age, including anthropometric measures (height and weight) and hemoglobin concentration, the household food security data could additionally be analyzed in relation to nutritional indicators among these groups. Using the data from the ENSMI, this report describes the levels of household food security in the Western Highlands of Guatemala; describes the household characteristics as well as the characteristics of female respondents and their children that are associated with household food security; and explores the relationships between household food security and nutritional outcomes in women of reproductive age and children under 5 years of age in this same region.

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Acceptability of Lipid-Based Nutrient Supplements and Micronutrient Powders among Women and Children in Bangladesh (2012)

FANTA and partners University of California-Davis; the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh; and the World Mission Prayer League (LAMB Hospital) conducted an assessment of the acceptability of lipid-based nutrient supplements (LNS) and micronutrient powders (MNP) among pregnant and lactating women and infants and young children in Bangladesh. Two different flavored LNS products, and one MNP (for infants and young children only) were tested for each group through a 2-day test feeding trial and a 2-week take-home trial. Focus groups were held with participants and community health program staff and volunteers to discuss their preferences for the LNS and MNP and to get feedback about their perceptions of malnutrition and nutrient supplements. Results showed that all tested supplements were acceptable in terms of both the amount of the test meal consumed and the rankings of overall acceptability. The home-use trials and focus group discussion data confirmed acceptability and indicated that sharing of supplements with others was uncommon.

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ProNUT HIV Stakeholder Consultation Report 2011 (2012)

In October 2011, FANTA assumed responsibility for moderating the ProNUT HIV e-forum, part of ProNUTRITION, a USAID-funded interactive, online information resource that supports health care providers, community health workers, policy makers, and program managers with current, relevant, and practical knowledge and tools for decision making in the context of nutrition and HIV and related areas. To ensure that ProNUT was meeting its goals, FANTA consulted with ProNUT stakeholders by conducting a user survey to gather data on defining the direction of the e-forum and on improving ownership and participation. This report discusses findings from the survey and makes some recommendations on how to make ProNUT more accessible and more useful.

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American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, January 2012

Study on New Corn-Soy Blend (CSB++) for Treatment of Moderate Acute Malnutrition among Children in Malawi

It’s estimated that 35 million children suffer from moderate acute malnutrition (MAM) worldwide. In response to a need for an alternative, effective and affordable supplementary food for children with MAM, the World Food Programme developed a new corn-soy blend recipe fortified with oil and dry skim milk called “CSB++”. In a recent FANTA study in Malawi, a locally produced CSB++ was compared to both a locally produced soy ready-to-use supplementary food (RUSF) and an imported soy/whey RUSF for a group of children aged 6–59 months with MAM. Although children who received CSB++ required 2 days longer to recover and gained slightly less weight than the children receiving the RUSFs did, the recovery rate for the tested CSB++ was similar to that of the soy RUSF and the soy/whey RUSF. This study has been published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and is available at no cost by using the following link to the online article.

Read the e-print of the article

Government of Sudan CMAM Training Course on Inpatient Management of Severe Acute Malnutrition: Training Materials (2011)

FANTA, in collaboration with national partners in Sudan, adapted and built on the World Health Organisation (WHO)'s 1999 publication Management of severe malnutrition: A manual for physicians and other senior health workers, WHO's 2002 Training course on the management of severe malnutrition, the 2009 Government of Sudan Community-Based Management of Severe Acute Malnutrition manual, and other materials to develop training materials for inpatient management of severe acute malnutrition (SAM) designed for physicians, nurses, and nutritionists in hospitals in Sudan. While the training course focuses on inpatient care, the training materials are compatible with the Community-Based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) approach and the Sudan context.

Learn more about training materials

Uganda Nutrition Action Plan 2011–2016

The Government of Uganda has developed a 5‑year Uganda Nutrition Action Plan (UNAP), a framework for addressing the country’s nutrition issues. The goal of this plan is to improve the nutrition status of all Ugandans, with emphasis on women of reproductive age, young children, and infants. The plan is intended to reduce the magnitude of malnutrition in Uganda and its impact on the individual, the household, the community, and the nation at large. The government also produced a short document targeted at district- and lower-level leaders to raise awareness of the nutrition situation in Uganda and to introduce the UNAP.

Learn more about Uganda's Nutrition Action Plan

New USAID Global Health e‑Learning Course on Nutrition Published

Inadequate maternal and child nutrition is the underlying cause of 3.5 million deaths every year and 35 percent of the disease burden for children under 5 years of age. Universal coverage of proven nutrition-related interventions could reduce overall mortality of children under 3 by 25 percent. This e-learning course, the first of several planned on nutrition, discusses the basic concepts of good nutrition and common nutritional deficiencies, the magnitude of malnutrition in different populations, vulnerable groups and the causes of undernutrition, and key indicators and ways of measuring them. It also outlines the major population-based interventions to improve nutritional status.

The course, authored by FANTA and produced by JHUCCP, is available through the USAID Global Health e-Learning Center website. All courses are available free to anyone interested, however, registration is required.

Go to the USAID Global Health e-Learning Center website

Report on the Review of the Integration of Community-Based Management of Acute Malnutrition into the Ghana Health System, August/September 2010 (2011)

As part of initiating the Community-Based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) approach in Ghana in 2009, a Severe Acute Malnutrition Support Unit (SAM SU) was established by the Ghana Health Service (GHS) to provide technical assistance countrywide as CMAM scaled up. Each region has commenced CMAM service implementation in one or two districts within a limited number of outpatient care and inpatient care sites. These sites will serve as learning sites for the region to inform gradual scale-up to other districts in the region.

The SAM SU requested FANTA to conduct a review of CMAM activities at the learning sites, including plans for scaling up. The objectives of the review were to assess the integration of CMAM services into the learning sites, assess learning sites’ performance, review recent plans and initiatives to scale up CMAM in Ghana, and provide recommendations for strengthening those plans.

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Review of Community-Based Management of Acute Malnutrition Implementation in West Africa, Summary Report (2011)

This report summarizes the findings of reviews of implementation of Community-Based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) in four West African countries (Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger). The report discusses the key determinants to achieving maximum impact of CMAM integration, scale-up, and quality improvement. The determinants are grouped in five domains: the enabling environment for CMAM, competencies for CMAM, access to CMAM services, access to CMAM supplies, and quality of CMAM. Optimal practices, a summary of findings, constraints, and practical recommendations are provided for each key determinant.

Download the summary report

Toolkit: For Countries Applying for Funding of Food and Nutrition Programs Under the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Round 11)

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund) is the largest multilateral donor funding services for people living with HIV, people affected by HIV and AIDS, and people with active tuberculosis. An interagency team, consisting of the World Food Programme (WFP), the World Health Organization (WHO), the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)‐funded Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance II Project (FANTA‐2), worked to create the Toolkit: For Countries Applying for Funding of Food and Nutrition Programs under the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Round 11) to strengthen Round 11 proposals for Global Fund funding. The toolkit can be used by countries considering inclusion of food and nutrition activities for the first time and by experienced countries that want to scale up their response or broaden the range of their food and nutrition support activities to address emerging problems. The toolkit provides potential Round 11 applicants with the information needed to include a food and nutrition component in their Global Fund proposals, have food and nutrition more consistently integrated into them, and improve the overall quality of their applications.

Download the toolkit

This project web site is made possible through the support provided by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) under terms of the cooperative agreement AID-OAA-A-12-00005 awarded to FHI 360. The information provided on this web site is not official U.S. Government information and does not represent the views or positions of USAID or the U.S. Government.