National Guidelines for Inpatient Management of Severe Acute Malnutrition in Infants and Young Children in Nigeria

Management of acute malnutrition has been primordial due to the nutritional effects on the socioeconomic development of any nation. The 21st century eight-millennium development goals and the current seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) emphasized at various International and National Summits have direct or indirect link to nutrition. Though poor knowledge of basic nutrition education and poverty are major challenges to optimal nutritional practices, yet, inherent behavioural factors are consistently the basic cause of poor health seeking and promotion practices in Nigeria.

Nigeria has developed National Guidelines and Training Manuals for Community Management of Acute Malnutrition with emphasis on management at Primary Health facilities called Outpatient Therapeutic Programme (OTP) sites. According to WHO (2013), the use of Inpatient guidelines on Management of Severe Acute Malnutrition has contributed immensely to the reduction of case fatality load in secondary and tertiary facilities. The use of both National Guidelines for Inpatient and Community Management of Acute Malnutrition would “strengthen the effective and safe nutrition actions to counteract the public health effects of malnutrition”.

The National Guidelines for Inpatient Management of Severe Acute Malnutrition at Inpatient facilities seek to provide practical guide to health and nutrition workers who design, implement, monitor and evaluate acute management programmes in Secondary and Tertiary health facilities.

The adaptation of this guideline is from the 2013 WHO Updates on the management of Acute malnutrition in infants and children and the 2012 Generic Protocol for Integrated Management of Acute Malnutrition (WHO, 2013; Golden et al., 2012). It would be useful to all health practitioners and planners/managers in Public and Private Institutions as it takes cognizance of the local realities and circumstances of Nigeria.