Latest news with #RUTF
The National
4 days ago
- Health
- The National
'He was just bones': Gaza volunteer reveals starvation horrors
Ibrahim Shareef Al-Ashi, 29, worked as a dentist before the genocide and for the last year has been volunteering to help feed others at the Gaza Soup Kitchen. He told the Sunday National that people were reduced to eating just one meal a day as Israel prevents food from entering Palestine. Al-Ashi said: 'If you eat three meals today, you will not eat tomorrow.' He added that before the famine, the Gaza Soup Kitchen would deliver around 2000 meals a day – this is now down to just 50 as the markets are now 'completely empty'. Al-Ashi worked as a dentist before the genocide began (Image: Supplied) What little there is has become inordinately expensive due to scarcity, he said, with the price of a kilogram of flour rocketing from less than $1 to $30. Children come to the soup kitchen suffering from acute malnutrition, said Al-Ashi, who told the story of seeing one boy who 'came to our clinic as a skeleton, he was just bones, there is no muscle in his body'. So violent are the effects of malnutrition that the boy was given food supplements. [[Gaza]] was on the brink of running out of food supplements on Friday, according to the United Nations, with supplies of Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) expected to run out by mid-August if the situation did not change. RUTF is an energy-dense paste which comes in a foil sachet and is used to treat children with severe wasting, according to Unicef's website. It is made with peanuts, sugar, milk powder, oil, vitamins and minerals and does not require cooking or preparation involving water, meaning it does not carry the risk of contamination. Unicef has previously warned that due to overlapping crises throughout the world, its price has spiked. Palestinians are currently subsisting on a diet of rice, lentils or bread, but there is no meat, said Al-Ashi. He lives in Gaza City, with his mother, brother and sister, having returned to his home after a period of displacement in the south. Though the engineered famine in Gaza has sparked international condemnation of Israel and appears to have spurred some into symbolic gestures like France's commitment to recognise Palestine in September, Israel's military assault on the territory remains relentless. 'Every day there are airstrikes, if you can hear the drone, it is like a buzzy sound, for us every day, every hour, it is a fact of life to hear it,' said Al-Ashi. 'The airstrikes never stop and there is no safe place here in Gaza.' He added: 'We are not numbers, we are mothers, children and families. People here are dying from hunger because of the world's silence. 'We are living in catastrophe.' While starvation can be treated, its long-term effects can be devastating. Sufferers can experience impaired fertility, heart attacks, kidney failure, stunted growth and fragile bones. Mental health, already under intense strain amid displacement and widespread death, can be put under extra pressure from malnutrition, with sufferers experiencing anxiety, depression and poor sleep. Unicef said previously that from April to mid-July, 20,504 children had been admitted with acute malnutrition, of which 3247 were suffering from severe acute malnutrition, nearly triple the number in the first three months of the year. A friend of Ibrahim Shareef Al-Ashi's from Italy has set up a fundraiser to support him. You can find out more and donate by clicking here. –
Ammon
5 days ago
- Health
- Ammon
Gaza running out of specialised food to save malnourished children
Ammon News - Gaza is on the brink of running out of the specialised therapeutic food needed to save the lives of severely malnourished children, United Nations and humanitarian agencies say. "We are now facing a dire situation, that we are running out of therapeutic supplies," said Salim Oweis, a spokesperson for UNICEF in Amman, Jordan told Reuters on Thursday, saying supplies of Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF), a crucial treatment, would be depleted by mid-August if nothing changed. "That's really dangerous for children as they face hunger and malnutrition at the moment," he added. Oweis said UNICEF had only enough RUTF left to treat 3,000 children. In the first two weeks of July alone, UNICEF treated 5,000 children facing acute malnutrition in Gaza. "Most malnutrition treatment supplies have been consumed and what is left at facilities will run out very soon if not replenished," a World Health Organization spokesperson said on Thursday. The WHO said that a programme in Gaza that was aiming to prevent malnutrition among the most vulnerable, including pregnant women and children under five, may have to stop work as it is running out of the nutritional supplements. As a result, international aid agencies say that only a trickle of what is needed, including medicine, is currently reaching people in Gaza. Reuters
Days of Palestine
5 days ago
- Health
- Days of Palestine
9 Palestinians die of Starvation, UN Warns Gaza Out of Children Lifesaving Food
DaysofPal-The health ministry in Gaza reported on Thursday that nine more people died over the past 24 hours due to famine and malnutrition, underscoring the speed at which the humanitarian crisis is deepening. The announcement, made via the ministry's Telegram channel, marks a chilling milestone in what aid groups are calling a completely preventable humanitarian disaster. Moreover, the United Nations has issued a grave warning that Gaza will run out of the specialized therapeutic food needed to treat severely malnourished children by mid-August, placing thousands of lives at immediate risk. According to UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO), stocks of Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food RUTF, a nutrient-rich paste used to treat severe acute malnutrition, are critically low. They added that the current supplies are only sufficient to treat around 3,000 children, while over 5,000 were already treated in the first half of July alone. 'If new supplies do not reach Gaza urgently, we will not be able to save the lives of the children who need this food most,' a UNICEF official warned. Since April, more than 20,500 children have been diagnosed with acute malnutrition in Gaza, with at least 3,247 suffering from its most life-threatening form, and between April and May, the number of SAM cases nearly tripled, while hunger-related deaths have surged, including at least 83 children among the 122 total deaths recorded so far, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. The crisis has escalated sharply due to tight Israeli restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid. Humanitarian agencies describe the situation as a man-made catastrophe, exacerbated by months of blockade, the collapse of Gaza's healthcare system, and the ongoing war that began in October 2023. Nearly 100,000 women and children are now in urgent need of life-saving nutritional treatment. If aid corridors are not immediately reopened, aid groups fear a wave of preventable child deaths in the coming weeks. The WHO also reported that essential nutrition programs for pregnant women and children under five are now on the brink of collapse due to the depletion of basic supplements and medical supplies. 'This is not just a health emergency; it is a moral one,' said a WHO spokesperson. 'Children are dying not because of disease, but because food and medicine are being blocked.' He added. Humanitarian officials are urgently calling for immediate and unrestricted access for aid convoys into all parts of Gaza, replenishment of therapeutic food stocks, particularly RUTF, a lasting ceasefire, and protection of humanitarian workers and facilities. They added that without swift action, agencies warn that Gaza could witness a full-scale famine among its youngest and most vulnerable, a preventable tragedy unfolding in real time. Shortlink for this post:
WIRED
09-07-2025
- Health
- WIRED
‘People Are Going to Die': A Malnutrition Crisis Looms in the Wake of USAID Cuts
Jul 9, 2025 6:00 AM Warehouses in the US are full of foods that fight malnutrition, while kids go hungry in places like South Sudan. Photograph:Few lifesaving tools are as effective as ready-to-use therapeutic foods, known as RUTFs, which are specially designed to treat severe malnutrition and often resemble fortified peanut butter. Despite announcing a $50 million pledged to fund RUTFs earlier this summer, the Trump administration's deep cuts to foreign assistance have wreaked havoc on RUTF distribution globally, and the State Department hasn't placed orders with leading suppliers this year. Experts say the disruptions will result in more children dying from hunger. 'Stock is running critically low,' Clement Nkubizi, the country director for the nonprofit Action Against Hunger in South Sudan, tells WIRED. 'People are going to die.' The very existence of RUTFs is a secular miracle. Considered one of the greatest innovations in preventing deaths from hunger since they were invented in the 1990s, RUTFs increase success rates treating childhood malnutrition from 25 percent to over 90 percent, according to Action Against Hunger. Since Donald Trump took office in January, foreign aid in the United States has been gutted beyond the point of recognition. On July 1, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) officially closed, leaving the State Department to administer some of its initiatives while wholly killing countless others. Throughout the radical dismantling of assistance programs, though, leaders like secretary of state Marco Rubio have insisted that certain lifesaving efforts would not be abandoned. Despite those assertions, critical programs have already been jettisoned, and some experts say the fatality toll from the cuts will be up to 14 million preventable deaths. USAID directly funded around 50 percent of the world's production of RUTFs. While the Trump administration has reinstated its RUTF contracts from 2024 after initially cutting them in March, US-based providers like MANA Nutrition and Edesia are still waiting for new orders from the US government. MANA's warehouses are still overflowing with product, up to three times the average amount of back stock the company keeps in case of acute emergencies. 'It's been sold to the US government,' says MANA cofounder David Todd Harmon. 'Nobody's picked it up.' Rhode Island–based Edesia has been filling 2024 orders for its RUTF product, Plumpy'Nut, at a slowed-down pace. This July it finished fulfilling those contracts, and it has not received word from the State Department about future orders. In the meantime, it is filling orders from nongovernmental organizations that are far smaller than the orders that the US government formerly placed. (USAID made up 85 percent of Edesia's customer base; for MANA, it was over 90 percent.) According to Edesia founder Navyn Salem, an order of 122,000 boxes of Plumpy'Nut is currently on its way to Sudan, but Edesia still has 185,000 boxes 'sitting there' waiting to be assigned to a country and for government officials to sign off on transportation contracts. 'For six months, we haven't been shipping anything. That means there are millions of children who are not getting what they need, and we can't catch up fast enough to reach them,' Salem says. Edesia had to lay off 10 percent of its staff in March as USAID was dismantled; Salem says that it took 'many, many, many weeks' for the company to receive partial payment owed by the US government, and that it is still owed money for 2024 orders. 'I believe Marco Rubio when he said, 'We want to continue these programs,'' Salem says. 'Still, we have not had an order in the fiscal year.' 'We are providing $40 million to UNICEF to treat approximately 432,000 children with severe acute malnutrition, and $80 million to the World Food Programme to prevent 1.5 million children from becoming severely wasted,' a State Department spokesperson told WIRED by email when asked about the impacts of the cuts. 'The Administration is working with Edesia and other partners to broaden its partnership network, potentially adding more US-based companies, while also improving shipping efficiency and cost-effective procurement.' Salem noted that the State Department has not communicated any of this with Edesia, and called its statement to WIRED 'not accurate, as of today.' She says she remains 'extremely hopeful' about the situation. In the wake of broader, drastic foreign aid cuts in the United States, other nations have pared back assistance. 'People might have expected that other countries would step up and fill in the gap. We've seen the opposite,' says Action Against Hunger associate director Heather Stobaugh. 'And when we look to the philanthropic world and private foundations, there's not enough of them to fill the gap.' So far in 2025, the UK, Germany, Switzerland, France, and Canada are among the countries further slashing aid, according to an analysis from the anti-poverty nonprofit Center for Global Development. Some private donors are helping; MANA, for example, has received $250 million in donations from a philanthropist over the past several years, which allowed it to move forward with plans to expand its warehouse space even amid the turmoil. The disruption to the RUTF supply chain, in tandem with other aid funding cuts, is already having a dire impact on the ground. Nkubizi is seeing this unfold firsthand. Since the larger funding withdrawal meant that most of his staff have been laid off and many clinics have shuttered, patients have to travel much farther to get the help they need—often 50 to 100 kilometers. Since most travel by foot, some simply cannot make the journey. 'Now mothers have to travel a long distance with their children,' he says. When these families do reach their destinations, the RUTF supply is dwindling; after traveling all that way, they are no longer guaranteed access to the prescription foods needed to stave off death and further illness. Nkubizi, who was born in a refugee camp in the Democratic Republic of Congo after his family fled conflict in Burundi, knows what it's like to get a chance because of US-funded RUTFs. 'I grew up as a child who needed nutritional support,' he says, noting that assistance from the United States has been viewed as a major force for good in the region. 'Catastrophe—that's the feeling going on here in Africa. People are still hoping they'll wake up and the orders will be reversed.' Stobaugh says that the broader funding cuts have made this crisis even more acute. 'Additional cuts to the health programs are creating a perfect storm, because malnourished children' s bodies have a weakened immune system. They're not strong enough to fight off common childhood illnesses,' she says. 'We have no malnutrition treatment. We also don't have funding for treatment for TB, malaria, HIV immunization programs. With the combination of no nutrition response and no health response, these children don't stand a chance.'
Yahoo
14-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Global Food Aid Matters to U.S. Workers and Manufacturers
As the CEO of a Charlotte, NC-based Design-Build firm, I have had firsthand involvement with the investment of billions of dollars in U.S.-based manufacturing facilities, and the thousands of jobs these facilities have created across our country. So, why would I have a connection to, or even care about, food aid sent to countries across the globe? My company works directly with the producer of a product that saves the lives of severely malnourished children worldwide: Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF). These 'RUTFs' are simple, wallet-sized foil packets of mostly peanut butter, whey, and vitamins. Like a turbocharged but squeezable protein bar, this small but mighty, nutrient-dense food revives and nourishes children who otherwise might die. This product is intended for children facing severe malnourishment and starvation. Regardless of why this is occurring, the fact remains that these children lack basic staples that we in America, a global top food producer, take for granted. Unfortunately, the production and distribution of RUTF is under threat due to changes being made by the Trump administration. There is definitely merit to evaluating how taxpayer funds are being used. However, I believe it is critical that we not disrupt the flow of lifesaving products like RUTF. While it may now seem that this is just another 'tug on the heart strings' article, urging the U.S. government to spend dollars to save the world, I encourage you to read on. I do believe in assisting those in need, wherever they may live. But there is another side to this story that affects U.S. workers, farmers, and business interests. In fact, the RUTF aid program aligns with the Trump administration's stated goal of realigning U.S. foreign aid to support humanitarian and national interests, such as local industries, workers, and economies. My firm, A M King, is a classic American business success story. Started more than 20 years ago in one room as a bootstraps local job-creating enterprise, today we are 100% employee-owned, with 80 team members in highly paid professional jobs, and have generated more than $2.5 billion in revenue since our inception. Our specialty is designing and building food processing and food-storage facilities across the United States. That's what brought me to RUTF, professionally and personally. We have worked with an RUTF manufacturer, MANA Nutrition, to improve its Georgia production facilities. This nonprofit corporation buys 2 million pounds of peanuts a month from local farmers. From its 135,000 square-foot Fitzgerald production and warehouse facility, MANA Nutrition can produce 500,000 pounds of RUTF product per day and feed 10 million children a year. The facility also brings vital jobs to the community, supporting the economy and providing opportunities for families across the region. I believe this is what the Trump administration means by supporting U.S. manufacturing. Over the past several years of working closely with MANA Nutrition, I've come to know, understand, and appreciate their purpose, mission, and business. In my 40-year career of working with some of the nation's largest companies and a range of CEOs, I can truly say MANA Nutrition is a company founded on a noble cause, with a desire to change the world for the better. It's also a well-managed company, focused on efficient, effective business principles. Team members are all dedicated professionals who work hard and expect little in return. Mark Moore, MANA Nutrition's founder and CEO, was a missionary in Africa for many years. He knows the need from personal experience. He and others who fund this cause have made it their mission to end malnourishment. All funding to develop and build MANA Nutrition's production facilities comes from private donors. This is not a company seeking government handouts to build and sustain a business. I also know non-profits. I can discern when their mission is true and if their management is ethical. I also believe a non-profit should operate like a successful business, with efficiency and accountability. MANA Nutrition is one of these organizations. The only money MANA receives from USAID is to buy its RUTF product, which is then used only for humanitarian purposes. Lest anyone wonder, while MANA Nutrition is a customer, my support for continuing the production and distribution of RUTF is in no way an indirect business plea. My company is well-established and financially strong. My goal is to see MANA's mission and purpose continue, knowing they save lives every day with the product they produce. If RUTF funding isn't reinstated, MANA Nutrition may have to shut down, hurting not only the producer and their farmers, but their workers, community, and supply chain businesses. Most of all, it will impact those children who depend on America's big heart. As an entrepreneur, business founder, and a CEO, I understand the goal of ensuring U.S. taxpayer dollars are spent wisely, including on foreign aid. I also recognize that worthy investments that serve our national interests, even if they have broad bipartisan support, sometimes get caught up and canceled in efforts to make government work better. RUTF is worth saving. I'm urging the White House and Congress to keep funding the production and distribution of RUTF, for the benefit of American farmers and workers and children all over the world. Brian T. King is founder and CEO of A M King.
