Create a World Where Every Malnourished Child Can Get Treatment
Over 3 million children die every year due to preventable malnutrition-related causes of death. Children with severe acute malnutrition who do not receive treatment are nine to eleven times more likely to die than their peers and suffer permanent setbacks to their health and future earnings potential if they survive. Effective community-based management of acute malnutrition (CMAM) programs treats malnourished children with higher than 90 percent recovery rates, without hospitalization, decreasing the cost of treatments in hospitals and saving the lives of those less privileged.
Unlock Aid had the pleasure of sitting with The Taimaka Project, whose moonshot is to create a cross-cutting U.S. government and multilateral partnership to address global childhood hunger. Presented as the President’s Emergency Plan for Acute Childhood Malnutrition, PEPFAM, has the potential to save nearly 30 million children over time. Under the model PEPFAM, children suffering from acute malnutrition could access affordable treatments such as CMAM.
Dr. Abubakar Umar and Olivia Shoemaker, co-founders of The Taimaka Project, discuss their moonshot idea to incubate cost-effective innovations to make treatment cheaper for children suffering from malnutrition. They were inspired by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2 and 3: to end global hunger and good health and well-being for all by 2030.
“We conceptualized this moonshot because we want every child, not just the ones in our clinics, to have access to life-saving treatment.”
~ The Taimaika Project
UA: What inspired your moonshot idea?
TP: Malnutrition is currently the #1 cause of under-5 childhood deaths globally. Despite that, only 1% of U.S. global health spending is going towards nutrition. We want to live in a world where every child who needs treatment for malnutrition can access it. Malnutrition treatment saves lives and helps children avoid permanent setbacks to their immune systems, neurodevelopment, and educational and earnings potential.
We hope that bringing our stories and perspectives as a local implementer (where we see the daily emergency of childhood malnutrition) can help move the needle in Washington to mobilize support for scaled evidence-based malnutrition treatment.
UA: What Sustainable Development Goal are you championing?
TP: SDG #2 45.4 million children globally suffer from malnutrition, making it the leading cause of under-five child deaths. These children are not just hungry, they are critically ill. Recent conflicts, climate-related shocks, natural disasters, and COVID-driven food shortages are continually exacerbating this global crisis.
Children with Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) that do not receive treatment are 9 to 11 times more likely to die than their peers and suffer from permanent setbacks to their neurodevelopment, immune system, and future earnings potential if they survive. Despite this, effective CMAM programs can treat children for around USD 60 per child with higher than 90% recovery rates. However, only about 25-30% of children with moderate and severe acute malnutrition (MAM/SAM) globally have access to treatment, a failure which ultimately results in 3.1 million children dying due to malnutrition-related causes every year. 45% of all deaths of children under-five are related to malnutrition.
In 2003, a similar predicament existed – the HIV/AIDS epidemic caused millions of deaths in sub-Saharan Africa and all around the world, despite the existence of highly effective treatment and prevention methods. In response, the Bush administration created the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). PEPFAR has proven a major global health success, saving an estimated 30 million lives since 2003 through $100 billion in funding.
The Biden-Harris Administration should establish a PEPFAR for Acute Childhood Malnutrition (PEPFAM) led by USAID and the Department of State to lay out the problem of acute childhood malnutrition. Similarly to HIV/AIDS, acute childhood malnutrition is deadly, but easily treatable. A cross-agency effort to better fund, coordinate, research, and implement prevention and treatment programs could save millions of children’s lives annually. Given effort and funding, it would even be possible to eventually eliminate severe acute malnutrition.
Taimaka works in rural Northeastern Nigeria, where we meet children suffering from malnutrition every day. Cheap, effective treatments like the kind we provide helps children fully recover over the period of several weeks. We conceptualized this moonshot idea because we want every child to have access to life-saving treatment.
UA: Looking ahead to next year, what are you hopeful about?
TP: Taimaka’s vision is to incubate cost-effective innovations to make malnutrition treatment cheaper, better, and more accessible for the 45.4 million children who need it.
On a micro scale, we are looking forward to treating thousands more children with moderate and severe acute malnutrition in Nigeria next year.
On a macro scale, we are excited to bring what we’ve learned while incubating innovations to other partners who implement malnutrition treatment, as well as share our ideas with a broader coalition through Unlock Aid to illustrate the power and opportunity of malnutrition programming to save the lives of the world’s most vulnerable children.