Get Guardian on GoogleSave the Children International (SCI) has raised the alarm that no fewer than four African countries, including Nigeria, Kenya, Somalia and South Sudan, are at risk of running out of ready-to-use emergency food over the next three months due to aid cuts.
They worried that if the gaps were not plugged, severely malnourished children may be at risk of dying. SCI explained that Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) is an energy-dense, micronutrient paste typically made using peanuts, sugar, milk powder, oil, vitamins, and minerals packaged in foil pouches with a long shelf life and no need of refrigeration.
The international organisation, in a statement yesterday, said over the past 30 years, this emergency therapeutic food had saved the lives of millions of children facing acute malnutrition, warning that a severely undernourished child is nine times more likely to die from common infections than a well-nourished child.
They warned that the collapse in nutrition funding globally may cut off treatment for 15.6 million people across 18 countries, including over 2.3 million severely malnourished children in 2025, and it would continue to deteriorate in 2026.
The statement disclosed that an estimated 3.5 million children under five experiencing severe acute malnutrition are at risk of death if they do not receive timely treatment and nutrition support, saying North-East and North-West Nigeria were most affected.
They further stated that the country needs at least 629,000 cartons of RUTF to treat children who are severely wasted or dangerously thin for their height during the June-November lean season, but so far only 64 per cent of this has been secured.
Save the Children said it required at least 3,000 cartons of RUTF every month for its ongoing malnutrition programmes, but significant funding cuts in 2025 had multiplied the severity of needs and limited access to much-needed lifesaving support.
Save the Children’s Regional Director for East and Southern Africa, Yvonne Arunga, said, “Imagine being a parent with a severely malnourished child. Now imagine that the only thing that could help your child bounce back from the brink of death is therapeutic food and that food is out of stock when it was once available.”
