Abstract

Severe acute malnutrition among children is still one of the main public health challenges in the 21st century particularly in developing countries It is associated with a high risk of morbidity and mortality The goals of management of SAM are to prevent short-term mortality achieve sustained nutritional recovery to reduce susceptibility to life-threatening infections and support neurocognitive development In addition to that SAM children need urgent lifesaving treatment to survive The outpatient therapeutic feeding program is one dimension of the community-based management of acute malnutrition that provides screening diagnostic and treatment services for uncomplicated SAM children 6 59 months of age by giving home-based treatment as Ready-to-use Therapeutic Food and routine medical treatment This review article gives a comprehensive update on outpatient therapeutic programmes in light of recently published standard treatment guidelines for the management of uncomplicated severe acute malnutrition