Clinical Trial: Development and Field Testing of Ready-to-use-therapeutic Foods Made of Local Ingredients in Bangladesh for SAM Children
Study Status: Completed
Recruit Status: Completed
Study Type: Interventional
Official Title: Development and Field Testing of Ready-to-use-therapeutic Foods Made of Local Ingredients in Bangladesh for the Treatment of Children With Severe Acute Malnutrition
Brief Summary:
Around 0.5 million under-five children are currently suffering from severe acute malnutrition (SAM) in Bangladesh and are at risk of death. Children with SAM and complications should be treated in a health care facility. It is imperative, however, to manage children with SAM but without any complications in the community. This requires a ready-to-use-therapeutic food (RUTF) that conforms to standard recommendations on its composition. The prototype RUTF is peanut based, made outside Bangladesh, and has to be imported. By developing a RUTF using local food ingredients, test it for acceptability and efficacy in the treatment of children with SAM, hopefully make the treatment of SAM cost-effective and sustainable.
Hypothesis: Does the locally developed ready-to-use-therapeutic foods (RUTFs) demonstrate similar or better acceptability and efficacy in the treatment of children suffering from severe acute malnutrition (SAM) when compared to the prototype RUTF (Plumpynut)?
Detailed Summary: Childhood malnutrition continues to be a significant public health problem in the world, especially in Asia. Acute malnutrition and more so, severe acute malnutrition (SAM) among children below five years of age remains a major embarrassment, and impediment to optimal human capital development in Asia. Without access to appropriate treatment, these SAM children are at high risk of death; there are only a few hospitals in Bangladesh and other developing countries with facilities for managing these children appropriately and their coverage is extremely low. In 2008, the Government of Bangladesh published National Guidelines for management of SAM at the facility level. However, these national guidelines have yet to become operationalized and there are very small exploratory initiatives that focus on community-based management of acute malnutrition (CMAM). Under the auspices of the Directorate General of Health Services, a 2007 national consensus meeting on the management of SAM resolved that CMAM along with scaling up facility-based management is essential for Bangladesh but that a local RUTF should be developed to ensure cost-effective and sustainable programs. Absence of a RUTF that is made of locally available food ingredients and hence, relatively inexpensive, is impeding the implementation of programs for community-based management of SAM in the country. The proposed project will develop new and improved recipes of RUTF based on established principles of dietetics and select at least two candidate RUTFs for treating SAM and testing their acceptability and efficacy. The experiments for development of RUTF will be done in ICDDR,B Food Processing Laboratory by the investigators. Experiments, including assessment of the composition of the local food ingredients and the presence of anti-nutrient factors, such as phytate, will be performed in the laboratories of Nutriset in France. Acceptability of the candidate RUTFs by the children as well as by the mothers will be as
Sponsor: International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh
Current Primary Outcome: Weight gain (g/kg/d) [ Time Frame: Initially 3 months for the acceptability trial another 18 months will be required for the efficacy trial ]
Original Primary Outcome: Weight gain [ Time Frame: 2 months ]
Current Secondary Outcome:
Original Secondary Outcome:
Information By: International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh
Dates:
Date Received: June 26, 2013
Date Started: April 2013
Date Completion:
Last Updated: August 29, 2016
Last Verified: June 2015
