When children suffer from acute malnutrition, their immune systems are so impaired that the risk of death is greatly increased. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), malnutrition is the single greatest threat to the world’s public health, with 178 million malnourished children across the globe.

Malnutrition is an important childhood killer. Primarily affecting children under 5 years old in low-income settings, it sometimes results from food scarcity (famine) but more often as a result of poor access to hygiene and health care. A child who does not have access to clean water and adequate primary health care, and who may be already underweight, is vulnerable to infections which can cause diarrhoea, vomiting, or loss of appetite. This turn leads to more weight loss, increasing vulnerability to further infection, and in some cases leading to a vicious cycle from which the child cannot recover without medical assistance. Below a certain level of weight and health, a child’s body is no longer capable of digesting ordinary food and will die without support.

Humanitarian interventions aim to interrupt this process, providing the child with specialized therapeutic foods that can be absorbed even by a very ill body as well as other support such as antibiotics to fight infections. This is done in Therapeutic Feeding Centres (TFCs). Outpatient (Ambulatory or ATFC) facilities treat the 90% or so of patients who can be treated during weekly visits, and Inpatient (ITFC) clinics provide 24-hour care and intensive medical management for the roughly 10% of children at risk of imminent death.