Latest news with #PlumpyNut
WIRED
5 days ago
- Health
- WIRED
What's Inside the Tiny Miracle Food Pouches That Can Save the Lives of Starving Gazans
Aug 4, 2025 7:00 AM Packed with calories and protein, the same magic mixture has successfully treated famine for decades—but due to funding cuts it's now in short supply. Photo-Illustration: WIRED Staff; Nutriset; Getty Images Take a peanut-based paste packed with 500 calories and nearly 13 grams of protein. Store it in a 92-gram foil pouch, so it can be easily sucked by starving infants on the front line. No water or refrigeration is required, meaning it can be distributed in drought-hit areas and stored at ambient temperature for up to two years. Just a couple of daily sachets can lead to a 10 percent weight gain over six weeks, sustaining recovery from severe acute malnutrition for less than $60 per child. Saving a life, it turns out, literally costs peanuts: just 71 cents a serving. This life-saving mixture is Plumpy'Nut. Developed by Normandy-based manufacturer Nutriset in 1996 by French paediatrician André Briend, it was the first ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF): energy-dense pastes that have boosted survival rates of severe acute malnutrition in children from less than 25 per cent to around 90 percent. The paste has saved tens of millions of lives. 'It's incredibly effective emergency food,' says medical doctor Steve Collins, founder of advocacy group Valid Nutrition. 'RUTF contains all the essential nutrients required for someone to recover from severe acute malnutrition. They're easy to transport, extremely energy dense, and don't require a cold supply chain or clean water to work.' While Nutriset's product was the first RUTF to be developed, it is not the only brand in this important field. Mana, for example, is an American-made RUTF produced in Fitzgerald, Georgia. The company states it can make 500,000 pounds of product per day—enough to fill four shipping containers, and feed 10 million children per year. Before Plumpy'Nut, cases of severe acute malnutrition—primarily occurring among children under 5 years old, diagnosed by very low weight-for-height scores and arm circumference—needed round-the-clock care at therapeutic feeding centres. Nurses at these makeshift hospitals in often remote areas would feed infants F100, a high-energy milk powder also made by Nutriset. Bacteria was often rife. 'There was always a risk that water was contaminated and carried disease,' says Collins. It's one of the reasons why mortality rates for in-patient care lurked at around 20 percent. Over half of Plumpy'Nut is made from peanut paste and vegetable oils. The nutty primary base contains fat-soluble nutrients, as well as protein, energy, and fatty acids that spark recovery. Nearly a quarter is skimmed milk powder, containing dairy protein and essential amino acids, the building blocks of protein. Another quarter is reserved for sugar—masking the taste of the added micronutrients: potassium, magnesium, calcium, iron, zinc, iodine, copper, selenium, and vitamins A, D, E, B complex, C, and K. The apocryphal story is that Briend's idea for the marvel that is Plumpy'Nut came from a jar of Nutella. In reality, it came from firsthand experience on the front line in the Sahel: The water-based solution wasn't working—infants were still dying. Working with Nutriset founder Michel Lescanne, his idea was to add F100 to a spread of peanuts (a common crop in areas of malnutrition and a natural protein-rich source) with oil and sugar. High in calories, low in maintenance, Plumpy'Nut didn't require cooling nor mixing before eating. Its oil base removed the risk of bacterial contamination. And most of its energy is released through fat, meaning quick absorption of micronutrients. Employees in 2005 at Nutriset working on the peanut-based RUTF Plumpy'nut manufacturing line in Malaunay in Normandy, France. The recipe remains practically unchanged 20 years later. Photograph:The premade RUTF sachet is a magic formula, says Collins. In starvation cases, refeeding syndrome can occur, a life-threatening metabolic condition in which nutrition that's too rapidly reintroduced leads to electrolyte imbalance. But RUTFs mean children can safely gain weight. 'As opposed to highly-concentrated formulas, where a child could easily overeat, parents can simply give their child RUTF and it's safe—the only limiting factor is appetite.' Collins first came across Plumpy'Nut in the 1998 Sudan famine, where he set up therapeutic feeding centers. 'I quickly realized this was the future,' he says, 'and that these sachets had to be administered at home, not at in-patient facilities.' He helped establish Plumpy'Nut's first widescale rollout during the 2000 Ethiopia famine, and pioneered a new community-based model: Parents would provide the emergency food rather than health care workers. It was adopted by the United Nations in 2004, and mortality rates for severe acute malnutrition with RUTF treatment are now typically under 5 percent. Besides reduced sachet plastic and minor refinement of vitamin and mineral premixes, Plumpy'Nut remains nearly the same 30 years on. 'No changes to the formulation have ever been done,' says Salima Boitout, group communication manager at Nutriset. It's still the RUTF gold standard. UNICEF is its number-one customer, distributing around 80 percent of the world's supply. It's why, despite the 20-year international patent expiring by 2018, very few alternative products have emerged, as they must meet strict technical composition guidelines set by the WHO and UNICEF. Some RUTF have reached Gaza—but supplies are rapidly dwindling. Amid mounting evidence of widespread starvation and famine, these sachets are the number one treatment, says Emmanuel Berbain, nutrition adviser at Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). 'From what we've seen on the ground, we're in a famine situation already, where deterioration isn't a matter of months, weeks, or days—it's hours.' There were at least 63 malnutrition-related deaths in the Gaza Strip in July, including 24 children under 5, according to data from the WHO. Since May, aid has been run by the Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), led by private American contractors. Only four distribution centers are open to feed a population of more than 2 million. Berbain says plenty of RUTF sachets lie at Israel's borders. More than 6,000 aid trucks, waiting in Egypt and Jordan, some only miles away from the Gazan border, are loaded with emergency food and medicine. But according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (Unrwa), Israel has denied entry. Authorities have since announced that a daily convoy of 200 aid trucks can enter the strip. 'We know how to treat starvation, it's nothing new, and used in nearly every humanitarian crisis this century,' adds Berbain. 'Distributing pasta isn't enough—you need to cook it, which isn't feasible for many people. And a diet of just wheat can lead to malnourishment.' Due to funding cuts, only around 36,000 tons of Plumpy'Nut RUTF was produced worldwide in 2024—approximately 1 million sachets a day. Photograph: Nutriset As starvation bites and famine takes hold, MSF nutrition clinics in Gaza are fast running out of RUTF stock, claims Berbain. But there are broader supply chain concerns. The shuttering of USAID has led to hundreds of thousands of boxes of Plumpy'Nut sachets collecting dust in warehouses around the world. With global aid distribution networks throttled, one stockpile includes 5,000 tons of Plumpy'Nut, worth $13 million, that could feed more than 484,000 children, according to US manufacturer Edesia. Part of Nutriset's PlumpyField global network, the Rhode Island site has operational capacity for 1.5 million Plumpy'Nut sachets a day—a sizable chunk of the 134,198 total tons of all Nutriset products processed by producers in 2023. However, due to funding cuts, just 72,000 tons of Nutriset RUTF and supplements were produced worldwide in 2024, half of which was Plumpy'Nut—approximately 1 million sachets a day. US foreign aid cuts are also depleting UNICEF's RUTF stocks. It warned in March that supply was running short in 17 countries, affecting 2.4 million children suffering from severe acute malnutrition. Widespread famine is also occurring in Sudan. 'The pipeline is drying up,' says Kirk Prichard, vice president of programs for humanitarian charity Concern US. 'Cameroon is expected to run out of RUTF this month, with Nigeria and Somalia soon to follow.' The US Department of State, which now administers foreign assistance programs following the official closure of USAID on July 1, didn't respond to a WIRED request for comment. Collins has now developed a plant-based emergency food with similar efficacy to Plumpy'Nut but made with soy, maize, and sorghum. It could be the future of RUTF, provided to children with hidden lactose intolerance or peanut allergies. But funding for the project dried up in 2021, meaning Valid Nutrition's factory in Malawi had to be closed. The group is now exploring third-party processors to manufacture the product. Collins believes it's symptomatic of a broader problem that's completely man-made: Politics often comes before the lives of innocent, starving people. 'With humanitarian access and space to operate, you could treat all cases in Gaza within a week with RUTF,' he says. 'Without it, recovery rates will be low and slow. They'll be more vulnerable to death.'
New York Times
25-06-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Why Is World Hunger America's Problem?
Some readers are fed up with me! 'Don't guilt trip me' is a refrain I heard from many readers of my recent columns from West Africa and South Sudan about children dying because of cuts in American humanitarian aid. Let me try to address the kinds of concerns critics have raised in Times comments and on social media: These may be tragedies, but they are not our tragedies. They are not our problems. I don't mean to sound cold-hearted, but we are not the world's doctor, and we can't end all suffering. True. We cannot save every dying child, or every mom hemorrhaging in childbirth. But our inability to save all lives does not imply that we should save none. A starving child on the brink of death can be brought back with a specialty peanut paste, Plumpy'Nut, costing just $1 a day. And the anemia that often causes women to hemorrhage and die in childbirth can be prevented with prenatal minerals and vitamins costing $2.13 for an entire pregnancy. Don't those seem reasonable investments? It's widely acknowledged that there were problems in American humanitarian aid. Why should American taxpayers, already strained and facing rising debt, have to foot the bill for dysfunction? I've followed the United States Agency for International Development for decades, and by far the worst dysfunction has been the chaos following U.S.A.I.D.'s dismantling this year. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Telegraph
14-03-2025
- Health
- Telegraph
The solo doctor in Sudan covering an area the size of Austria
Dr Tom Catena can't remember the last time he had a day off. The American missionary running the biggest hospital in Sudan's Nuba mountains says he has been on call pretty much 24 hours a day since he opened the facility 17 years ago. 'It's been years,' he said. 'I had pulmonary tuberculosis back in 2017…I guess that was the last time I really took some time off.' Known by locals as Dr Tom, the 60-year-old strives to 'show the love of Christ' through his medical work. 'You do it as a complete service,' he said, adding that his Catholic faith is his 'driving force'. It's good he has faith, because he is up against it. With Sudan mired in civil war, more than a million people have fled to the relative safety of the Nuba mountains, piling pressure on its already overstretched healthcare system. There are now four million people living in the region, but only two hospitals to meet their needs. On top of that, the region is in the grip of a devastating famine, which is stretching Dr Catena's resources to breaking point and creating the most challenging moment for the region since it came under attack in 2011. Dr Catena has no idea how many people have arrived in the Nuba mountains since fighting broke out in Sudan almost two years ago, but many have risked their lives to reach the Mother of Mercy hospital which he runs – word of its work has travelled far and wide. 'We heard of Dr Tom, they say he has treated millions of people,' said Layla Mohammed, 40, who travelled by TukTuk for five days to reach the hospital for her daughter to be treated for severe malnutrition. 'He's a good man, we love him.' Dressed in dusty scrubs and a worn-out Brown University t-shirt – Dr Catena studied engineering at the Ivy League school in the 1980s before converting to medicine – he told The Telegraph that the food security situation in Nuba is 'by far the worst it's been'. In December, famine was declared in at least five areas in Sudan, including the Western Nuba Mountains and Zamzam displacement camp in North Darfur. Food shortages are so severe that the hospital has been forced to start rationing the high-calorie peanut paste called Plumpy Nut which is used to treat severe malnutrition in children and breastfeeding mothers, said Dr Catena. Fresh supplies aren't expected until April, he added. A significant proportion of the patients he and his small team of staff, most of whom are locals he has trained himself, see are suffering from malnourishment as a result of the famine. While he credits his faith with giving him the strength to keep going, it's a struggle. Often seeing over 100 patients a day, Dr Catena said he finds it hard to switch off: 'I'm a major insomniac.' 'I'll wake up in the night and I'll start going over an operation that I did…when your brain starts doing that, forget about it. It's really, really hard to sleep,' he said, removing a pair of battered circular glasses to reveal dark rings under his eyes. 'I've had these glasses for 10 years. They're so scratched I have to keep taking them off to see properly!' Dr Catena lives in a basic brick compound attached to the back of the hospital with his wife Nasima, who is from Nuba, and their two adopted sons: Francis, seven, and Vincent, who is six months old. There is no mobile-phone signal, there are no paved roads and there is no running water. It's a far cry from the city of Amsterdam in upstate New York, where he grew up as a devout Catholic with his parents and six siblings. Dr Catena is no stranger to war. In 2011, the Sudanese government dropped more than 10,000 bombs on the rugged mountainous region in a scorched earth campaign against a local rebel group who refused to accept the imposition of Islamic law. Air strikes hit Dr Catena's hospital and home, and the region suffered under a total aid blockade. Every other doctor, aid worker and even major international organisations including the United Nations, left as soon as the assault began. Despite never having treated trauma wounds before, only Dr Catena was left to care for Nuba's three million inhabitants. 'Truckloads of up to a hundred wounded would come. We'd put them on sheets or trolleys in the courtyard, and we just started doing triage,' Dr Catena recalled. In recognition of his work and bravery in staying behind, delivering babies, treating shrapnel wounds and performing amputations, Dr Catena was awarded the prestigious Aurora prize – the top humanitarian award. The Telegraph met Dr Catena in January – before the USAID cuts – and he said he was 'happy' Donald Trump is now president. 'I just didn't like the way the country was going. It just seemed we were losing our moral compass,' he said, calling 'uncontrolled immigration' in the US 'complete madness'. But he said that 'denigrating immigrants is of course wrong', adding that it was incredibly difficult for his Sudanese wife Nasima to accompany him on a recent trip. Dr Catena thinks that Trump will probably have very little effect on Sudan's civil war. 'He is not engaged,' he said. 'George Bush was the last president interested in Africa, he gave us Pepfar', he said, referring to the landmark HIV/Aids programme. A Catholic mission hospital, the Mother of Mercy doesn't provide birth control or abortions under any circumstances. 'As a doctor and as a human, you sympathise with people that are in a bad situation, but it is completely forbidden,' said Dr Catena. 'Culturally, in the Nuba mountains, it is an anathema to have an abortion anyway.' In an effort to offset the dire shortage of medical professions in a region that is largely dependent on poorly paid doctors coming from abroad, in 2022, Dr Catena and a small team opened the St Bakhita Health Training Institute on the hospital grounds. It's the first institution in the Nuba mountains to provide accredited medical courses – a remarkable offering in an area where most don't finish secondary school – and Dr Catena hopes its graduates will one day be able to carry on his work. 'One of our main goals over the past ten years has been to bring care closer to the people as access to care is such an issue,' he said. 'These new graduates will help to transform health care in Nuba as it will double the workforce in our badly under-resourced region.' They currently have 19 clinical officer students and 29 midwifery students. By June 2026, they will have a new intake of around 30 nurses and midwives for the three year diploma course. But even with a solid blueprint for his legacy in place, Dr Catena shows no sign of slowing down. As if on cue, his pager beeped – a message from one of his students asking him for advice on a surgical procedure – and he was back on his feet and striding towards the operating room.
Yahoo
14-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
The solo doctor in Sudan covering an area the size of Austria
Dr Tom Catena can't remember the last time he had a day off. The American missionary running the biggest hospital in Sudan's Nuba mountains says he has been on call pretty much 24 hours a day since he opened the facility 17 years ago. 'It's been years,' he said. 'I had pulmonary tuberculosis back in 2017…I guess that was the last time I really took some time off.' Known by locals as Dr Tom, the 60-year-old strives to 'show the love of Christ' through his medical work. 'You do it as a complete service,' he said, adding that his Catholic faith is his 'driving force'. It's good he has faith, because he is up against it. With Sudan mired in civil war, more than a million people have fled to the relative safety of the Nuba mountains, piling pressure on its already overstretched healthcare system. There are now four million people living in the region, but only two hospitals to meet their needs. On top of that, the region is in the grip of a devastating famine, which is stretching Dr Catena's resources to breaking point and creating the most challenging moment for the region since it came under attack in 2011. Dr Catena has no idea how many people have arrived in the Nuba mountains since fighting broke out in Sudan almost two years ago, but many have risked their lives to reach the Mother of Mercy hospital which he runs – word of its work has travelled far and wide. 'We heard of Dr Tom, they say he has treated millions of people,' said Layla Mohammed, 40, who travelled by TukTuk for five days to reach the hospital for her daughter to be treated for severe malnutrition. 'He's a good man, we love him.' Dressed in dusty scrubs and a worn-out Brown University t-shirt – Dr Catena studied engineering at the Ivy League school in the 1980s before converting to medicine – he told The Telegraph that the food security situation in Nuba is 'by far the worst it's been'. In December, famine was declared in at least five areas in Sudan, including the Western Nuba Mountains and Zamzam displacement camp in North Darfur. Food shortages are so severe that the hospital has been forced to start rationing the high-calorie peanut paste called Plumpy Nut which is used to treat severe malnutrition in children and breastfeeding mothers, said Dr Catena. Fresh supplies aren't expected until April, he added. A significant proportion of the patients he and his small team of staff, most of whom are locals he has trained himself, see are suffering from malnourishment as a result of the famine. While he credits his faith with giving him the strength to keep going, it's a struggle. Often seeing over 100 patients a day, Dr Catena said he finds it hard to switch off: 'I'm a major insomniac.' 'I'll wake up in the night and I'll start going over an operation that I did…when your brain starts doing that, forget about it. It's really, really hard to sleep,' he said, removing a pair of battered circular glasses to reveal dark rings under his eyes. 'I've had these glasses for 10 years. They're so scratched I have to keep taking them off to see properly!' Dr Catena lives in a basic brick compound attached to the back of the hospital with his wife Nasima, who is from Nuba, and their two adopted sons: Francis, seven, and Vincent, who is six months old. There is no mobile-phone signal, there are no paved roads and there is no running water. It's a far cry from the city of Amsterdam in upstate New York, where he grew up as a devout Catholic with his parents and six siblings. Dr Catena is no stranger to war. In 2011, the Sudanese government dropped more than 10,000 bombs on the rugged mountainous region in a scorched earth campaign against a local rebel group who refused to accept the imposition of Islamic law. Air strikes hit Dr Catena's hospital and home, and the region suffered under a total aid blockade. Every other doctor, aid worker and even major international organisations including the United Nations, left as soon as the assault began. Despite never having treated trauma wounds before, only Dr Catena was left to care for Nuba's three million inhabitants. 'Truckloads of up to a hundred wounded would come. We'd put them on sheets or trolleys in the courtyard, and we just started doing triage,' Dr Catena recalled. In recognition of his work and bravery in staying behind, delivering babies, treating shrapnel wounds and performing amputations, Dr Catena was awarded the prestigious Aurora prize – the top humanitarian award. The Telegraph met Dr Catena in January – before the USAID cuts – and he said he was 'happy' Donald Trump is now president. 'I just didn't like the way the country was going. It just seemed we were losing our moral compass,' he said, calling 'uncontrolled immigration' in the US 'complete madness'. But he said that 'denigrating immigrants is of course wrong', adding that it was incredibly difficult for his Sudanese wife Nasima to accompany him on a recent trip. Dr Catena thinks that Trump will probably have very little effect on Sudan's civil war. 'He is not engaged,' he said. 'George Bush was the last president interested in Africa, he gave us Pepfar', he said, referring to the landmark HIV/Aids programme. A Catholic mission hospital, the Mother of Mercy doesn't provide birth control or abortions under any circumstances. 'As a doctor and as a human, you sympathise with people that are in a bad situation, but it is completely forbidden,' said Dr Catena. 'Culturally, in the Nuba mountains, it is an anathema to have an abortion anyway.' In an effort to offset the dire shortage of medical professions in a region that is largely dependent on poorly paid doctors coming from abroad, in 2022, Dr Catena and a small team opened the St Bakhita Health Training Institute on the hospital grounds. It's the first institution in the Nuba mountains to provide accredited medical courses – a remarkable offering in an area where most don't finish secondary school – and Dr Catena hopes its graduates will one day be able to carry on his work. 'One of our main goals over the past ten years has been to bring care closer to the people as access to care is such an issue,' he said. 'These new graduates will help to transform health care in Nuba as it will double the workforce in our badly under-resourced region.' They currently have 19 clinical officer students and 29 midwifery students. By June 2026, they will have a new intake of around 30 nurses and midwives for the three year diploma course. But even with a solid blueprint for his legacy in place, Dr Catena shows no sign of slowing down. As if on cue, his pager beeped – a message from one of his students asking him for advice on a surgical procedure – and he was back on his feet and striding towards the operating room. African Mission Healthcare are the leading supporters of the Mother of Mercy hospital. Click here to read more and support their work Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
