Uganda: Improving hospital care for severe acute malnutrition in children

Country: Uganda Source: World Health Organization **Brazzaville, Kampala, Lomé—**The World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Africa, in collaboration with ministries of health, partner hospitals, and with support from Irish Aid, organized a series of regional training-of-trainers sessions to strengthen hospital care for severe acute malnutrition (SAM) with medical complications. These training courses form part of the implementation of WHO’s updated 2023 recommendations on the prevention and management of SAM and nutritional edema in children under 5 years. They are based on revised WHO training modules (2025), aligned with the latest evidence, and integrate tools on quality of care, clinical management and support for patients and caregivers. In sub-Saharan Africa, malnutrition remains a major driver of child mortality, with waste being its deadliest form. According to the Joint Child Malnutrition Estimates (WHO, UNICEF, World Bank, 2025), 12.2 million children under 5 suffer from SAM worldwide, nearly a quarter of them in Africa—around 3 million children. Faced with this heavy burden, training of health workers is essential to ensure quality, standardized and evidence-based hospital care that can significantly improve treatment and save children’s lives. “This training highlights the critical importance of ensuring quality hospital care for children suffering from malnutrition and addresses a key need: supporting countries in applying standardized protocols and continuously improving care quality to save lives,” said Dr Eugénie Niane, Technical Officer for Nutrition and Food Safety at WHO Madagascar. The sessions combined theoretical and practical approaches, including case studies, simulations, facilitation exercises and supervised clinical placements in hospitals. This integrated approach strengthened clin...

Original source: Relief Web