Community-based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) seeks to reach as many children as possible through the provision of treatment services at decentralized care sites. However, rates of acute malnutrition remain unacceptably high. To help health systems more effectively deliver services for children with acute malnutrition, Concern developed the CMAM Surge approach. The approach is based on the observation that in many contexts the number of children seeking treatment for acute malnutrition tends to peak during certain months of the year.
These seasonal ‘surges’ in demand are driven by many overlapping factors, including, for example, the pre-harvest hunger gap, increased incidence of malaria or diarrhoea during the rainy season, and women’s workload patterns and movements associated with grazing livestock. The CMAM Surge approach complements routine CMAM services by improving health staffs’ use of facility data and knowledge of the local context to better anticipate, plan for, and respond to these increases in demand for acute malnutrition treatment services.
Concern has implemented the CMAM Surge approach in Kenya, Uganda, Niger, Ethiopia, Chad, Burundi, and Pakistan, including an adaptation of the approach focused on the treatment of malaria in Sierra Leone.