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Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe: Over 80 000 children to benefit from supplementary feeding

Over 80 000 children under the age of five years are being fed by World Vision Zimbabwe under the child supplementary feeding programme. Wet feeding by corn Soya blend porridge is carried out in all Area Development Programmes (ADP).
The ADPs have done a lot of preparatory work to ensure that all children in their catchment areas are being fed. In some ADPs statistics have shown that almost half of the children being fed have gained weight since the beginning of the programme while less that one third lost and the rest remained the same.

Running concurrently with this programme are training sessions on therapeutic feeding. The first training was carried out in conjunction with the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare.

The training aimed to sensitize health workers interested in therapeutic feeding on the World Health Organisation's (WHO) protocol on the management of severe malnutrition.

This protocol guides comprehensive screening, diagnosis and management of children with severe malnutrition. The WHO protocol has been found to significantly reduce mortality related to malnutrition among the children.