Saving young lives with peanut butter

Article

What do you feed to a starving child? When the setting is a clinic operated by Doctors Without Borders in Niger-where devastating famine has turned the chronic malnutrition that characterizes this impoverished country into a killer-the answer is: Plumpy'nut. This thick peanut butter spread, enriched with vitamins and minerals, is being dispensed to mothers in small, foil-wrapped packets, each containing 500 calories of nourishment that require no cooking and are eagerly devoured by babies.

According to a recent article in The New York Times, Plumpy'nut is a true miracle cure that can bring starving infants back from the brink of death in as little as two weeks-no health-care workers, no IV feeding, no hospitalization required. The spread was developed by a French food scientist, Andre Briend, and is produced by Nutriset, a French company that specializes in food supplements for relief programs.

A typical course of treatment with Plumpy'nut is two packets a day for four weeks, given with Unimix, a vitamin-enriched flour with which African families make porridge. Total cost to nourish one child: $20. Funding constraints limit this feeding program to the sickest children. Their compatriots who are merely malnourished-one child in five, according to the United Nations-will have to wait until developed nations take note of their plight and come up with adequate funds.

Recent Videos
Paul Helmuth, MD
Brittany Bruggeman, MD
Octavio Ramilo
Melissa Fickey, MD
Octavio Ramilo, MD
Brittany Bruggeman, MD
John Loiselle, MD
Brittany Bruggeman, MD
Tina Tan, MD, FAAP, FIDSA, FPIDS
© 2024 MJH Life Sciences

All rights reserved.