Abstract

Severe acute malnutrition remains one of the most pressing public health challenges affecting children under five years of age in low- and middle-income countries, contributing significantly to childhood morbidity and mortality rates globally. Ready-to-use therapeutic food has emerged as a revolutionary intervention strategy that enables home-based management of severe malnutrition, thereby reducing the burden on healthcare facilities while improving treatment accessibility for vulnerable populations (Uddoh et al., 2021a). This systematic review critically examines the effectiveness, safety, acceptability, and implementation strategies of ready-to-use therapeutic food interventions across diverse geographical and socioeconomic contexts. The review synthesizes evidence from multiple studies that have evaluated nutritional recovery rates, weight gain velocities, treatment completion rates, and relapse prevention outcomes among severely malnourished children receiving ready-to-use therapeutic food compared to traditional facility-based therapeutic feeding programs. Findings indicate that ready-to-use therapeutic food demonstrates comparable or superior efficacy to standard therapeutic approaches while offering significant advantages in terms of cost-effectiveness, family convenience, and community-level scalability (Schoonees et al., 2013). However, implementation challenges persist, including supply chain constraints (Bukhari et al., 2021a), cultural acceptability issues (Umekwe & Oyedele, 2021), quality assurance concerns (Okonkwo & Onasanya, 2021), and the need for integrated community health worker training programs (Komi et al., 2021a). The review also explores the role of locally produced ready-to-use therapeutic food formulations in enhancing sustainability and cultural appropriateness of malnutrition treatment programs (Thapa et al., 2017). Furthermore, this analysis examines the intersection of ready-to-use therapeutic food interventions with broader health system strengthening initiatives (Oluoha et al., 2021), vaccination programs (Piot et al., 2019), maternal health services (Mustapha et al., 2021), and poverty alleviation strategies that address the underlying determinants of childhood malnutrition (Ruel et al., 2018). The findings underscore the importance of adopting holistic, community-centered approaches that combine nutritional interventions with health education, economic empowerment, and environmental health improvements to achieve sustainable reductions in severe acute malnutrition prevalence. This review contributes to the growing body of evidence supporting the integration of ready-to-use therapeutic food into national nutrition policies and community health programs as a cornerstone intervention for achieving global nutrition and child survival targets.