Dear The minimum length of stay in for severe malnourished children admitted in OTP program is 2 months and Maximum 4 months. you can get assistance and used FANTA as a reference

The simple answer is we keep them in until they are cured or meet a "discharge as not responding" criteria. The longer answer is that median LOS depends upon the degree of severity of wasting / oedema / concurrent infection. If the bulk of admissions are at or just below the admission threshold then median LOS will be short. Last year I reviewed a CMAM program admitting on MUAC < 110 mm with over 75% of admissions above 108 mm. The median LOS was a little over 30 days. A few months ago I reviewed a CMAM program admitting on MUAC < 115 mm with over 50% of admissions above 112 mm. The median LOS was 56 days. In this latter program, systemic antimicrobials were absent and there was a lot of intra-household sharing of RUTF. This points to the other factor that strongly affects LOS ... compliance. Compliance has two faces. The program can fail to comply (e.g. RUTF stock-outs, lack of essential drugs, failure to provide a protection ration, &c.). The carer / beneficiary can fail to comply (e.g. sharing of RUTF). Both failures in compliance will tend to lead to longer LOS. Note that there is a virtuous circle here. Any child with a MUAC below the admission threshold but not in the program is a coverage failure. This means that programs that admit most cases at or just below the admission threshold are likely to be high coverage programs. Children in these programs get well quickly and very few die or need inpatient care. This results in a good reputation which encourages early treatment seeking which improves program outcomes which ... and so on. The opposite can also hold. Long LOS it typical of a low coverage program and low coverage programs tend to have poor outcomes which reduces coverage which ... and so on. LOS is a coverage proxy and is used as such in SQUEAC investigations (along with all sorts of other indicators). When I undertake SQUEAC investigations I see median LOS greater than about 8 weeks as a bad sign.

Hi http://www.en-net.org.uk/question/307.aspx Rogers

Hi everyone........ My question is that if child comes in discharge criteria in 3rd week then what should we do? or we should keep the child in program for two months? (LOS minimum-2months..........maximum -4 months)