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Severe acute malnutrition (SAM) in children under five poses a huge burden globally, with the Democratic Republic of Congo being one of the worst-affected countries. Ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) is used in the management of children suffering from SAM to make up for lost weight and tissue mass. In 2023 the WHO recommended the use of a reduced dose of RUTF strategy after a carefully assessing the child and household situation. This could be particularly useful in settings with limited resources or situations where the supply of RUTF is challenging, but there is insufficient evidence on the best dosing strategy. In this study, Julien Ntaongo Alendi and colleagues compare the effectiveness of a reduced RUTF dosage to a standard dosage in children suffering from SAM without medical complications in a non-inferiority randomized controlled trial in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Image Credit: We would like to acknowledge Suaahara II for the use of this image (Food - Ready to use therapeutic food - 00A - Nepal) accessed from the USAID Advancing Nutrition-UNICEF IYCF Digital Image Bank (iycf.advancingnutrition.org). Commercial use, redistribution, or selling of these images and materials is prohibited.
Citation: (2025) PLoS Medicine Issue Image | Vol. 22(5) June 2025. PLoS Med 22(5): ev22.i05. https://doi.org/10.1371/image.pmed.v22.i05
Published: June 17, 2025
Copyright: © 2025 . This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Severe acute malnutrition (SAM) in children under five poses a huge burden globally, with the Democratic Republic of Congo being one of the worst-affected countries. Ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) is used in the management of children suffering from SAM to make up for lost weight and tissue mass. In 2023 the WHO recommended the use of a reduced dose of RUTF strategy after a carefully assessing the child and household situation. This could be particularly useful in settings with limited resources or situations where the supply of RUTF is challenging, but there is insufficient evidence on the best dosing strategy. In this study, Julien Ntaongo Alendi and colleagues compare the effectiveness of a reduced RUTF dosage to a standard dosage in children suffering from SAM without medical complications in a non-inferiority randomized controlled trial in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Image Credit: We would like to acknowledge Suaahara II for the use of this image (Food - Ready to use therapeutic food - 00A - Nepal) accessed from the USAID Advancing Nutrition-UNICEF IYCF Digital Image Bank (iycf.advancingnutrition.org). Commercial use, redistribution, or selling of these images and materials is prohibited.