Acute malnutrition in young children remains a global problem, with 13.7 million children suffering from severe acute malnutrition in 2022.

In a study published in The Lancet, researcher Sarah King and co-authors, including Feinstein Research Assistant Professor Anastasia Marshak, examined relapse rates among children recovering from severe acute malnutrition in Mali, South Sudan, and Somalia.

The study found that following severe acute malnutrition recovery, children have a significant risk of relapsing within 6 months.

Children exposed to severe acute malnutrition are 3.3 to 5.3 times more likely to develop acute malnutrition and 6.4 to 16.9 times more likely to develop severe acute malnutrition compared with peers without a recent history of acute malnutrition.

The authors suggest that although community-based management of acute malnutrition proves highly effective in saving lives, high relapse rates indicate a need for additional services and monitoring for 6 months or longer following recovery.

Read the open-access paper in The Lancet.