Hello, I would like to know if there's any available global or any country specific document that shows proportion of near-SAM cases among the MAM cases. That is children whose MUAC is at 11.5 cm (or between 11.7 to 11.5 cm, perhaps) or with z-score of -3 .

The reason for asking such question is for the prioritization of limited resources for development program. In the Philippines, management of SAM already has clear budget allocated by the government, but not for MAM, mainly because of funding constraints vis-a-vis magnitude of MAM cases.

However, though, there's a move to consider MAM in the current government budgeting but through a staggered approach, that is prioritizing near-SAM cases first, which will eventually cover the rest of the MAM cases later. Other (non near-SAM) MAM cases will momentarily be managed through the usual local supplementary feeding programs through local initiatives, until sufficient resources are available.

I'm interested to look at the range of proportions of near-SAM cases from other countries to get some idea how much is needed for allocation purposes.

We do have results of SMART surveys but only during emergencies and only in specific areas of the country and the National Nutrition Surveys that only shows GAM and is not further dis-aggregated into SAM and MAM (and near-SAM particularly).

Thanks.