The Family MUAC Approach<\/h4>\n
The Family MUAC\u00a0<\/strong>approach was designed in 2012 to empower caregivers to identify undernutrition in their children, allowing them to seek early treatment. This is important as many children with acute malnutrition arrive at medical facilities in a critical condition due to late diagnosis.\u00a0Normally, community health workers (CHWs) periodically or opportunistically measure children for acute malnutrition in the communities where they work. However, mothers or other primary carers can easily learn to screen their children using the relatively simple Mid-Upper Arm Circumference (MUAC) tapes and testing for oedema. Neither literacy or numeracy skills are required and with basic training, caregivers can take measurements on a regular basis, identify early signs of undernutrition and seek treatment before serious malnutrition occurs.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Benefits of Family MUAC<\/strong>:<\/p>\n The COVID-19 pandemic is particularly impacting Afghan women and children\u2019s health, putting many at severe risk of malnutrition.\u00a0 At the same time as malnutrition is likely rising, \u00a0health partners are continuing to see lower numbers of patients at fixed health and nutrition facilities due to people\u2019s fear of catching the virus.<\/p>\n Under the no-cost extension of the SUN Pooled Fund Project Afghanistan, Action for Development (AfD), developed a project to train CHWs in Family MUAC\u00a0<\/strong>in 5 provinces in Afghanistan \u2013 Panjsher, Kabul, Dykundi, Bamyan, Jawzjan – selecting several districts in each province where training in Family MUAC will be provided to caregivers and female CHWs. Community health workers in Afghanistan work as a male-female couple and are based in a health post, serving a population of 1000-1500 per pair.\u00a0 They carry critical health knowledge, skills and tools into communities and homes and are the first point of contact with the health system for many Afghans.<\/p>\n As well as the Family MUAC training, AfD will be providing training using counselling card materials for CHWs.\u00a0These counselling cards have been adapted by UNICEF Afghanistan for the local context, to ensure that CHWs are up to date with recommended practices for infant and young child feeding adapted to the COVID-19 context.<\/p>\n These 4 trainers will travel to\u00a0 the \u00a0provinces alongside Master Trainer Dr Zabihullah Rahimi, where between October and December 2020, they will train 500 CHWs and approximately 200 caregivers in the Family MUAC\u00a0<\/strong>method.<\/p>\n The expected outcome of the training is to support uptake ofroutine services for the early detection and treatment of child wasting in the context of COVID-19.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In mid-October the team of trainers travelled from Kabul to Bamyan province where they embarked on the first training sessions.\u00a0 Training was provided to 120 CHWs and 40 caregivers over 8 health facilities in 3 districts.\u00a0 Heads of clinics and Community Health Supervisers(CHS) also joined the training sessions. MUAC tapes were distributed and each trained CHW received a copy of the IYCF counselling cards.<\/p>\n Next the team travelled to Dykundi province where they noted that the long distances to be covered between health facilities was a challenge.\u00a0Notwithstanding the distances, the team was able to provide training to120 CHWs and 45 caregivers in 3 districts.\u00a0 Ten volunteers from a health in the community group also joined the training.\u00a0 The CHWs and CHS noted the need for Family MUAC training in other districts of Dykundi in order to combat high levels of malnutrition.\u00a0Caregivers gave very positive feedback regarding the MUAC tapes, stating that they must travel long distances to access health facilities so they welcomed the ability to take measurements of their children at home.<\/p>\n Action for Development would like to acknowledge the support of UNICEF Afghanistan for this project through the sharing of training materials and IYCF counselling cards adapted to the Afghanistan country context and translated in to local languages.<\/p>\n AfD would also like to thank the Public Nutrition Department for their support and particularly Dr Dashti for providing the training of the trainers.\u00a0 Also the BPHS<\/a>[1]providers in the provinces (Aga Khan Foundation and MOVE) for their support in selecting the districts and facilitating the training in those districts.<\/p>\n Additionally, the technical support of the Global Nutrition Cluster (GNC) Technical Alliance <\/a>(formerly the GTAM) was requested in order to ensure a strong monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) component. The GNC Technical Alliance is set up to identify technical gaps and leverage the technical expertise of the nutrition community to fill those gaps. In this case Action Against Hunger UK, technical experts and leaders in CMAM MEAL, are providing the technical support. The MEL will identify best practices and lessons learned in order to inform the development of future Family MUAC projects and advocate for the approach across Afghanistan, and globally.<\/p>\n The next Family MUAC training sessions will take place in Jawzjan, Panjsher and finally Kabul provinces. Updates, photos and the final report can be found on Action for Development\u2019s website.<\/a><\/p>\n For further information, please contact: ali.farnham@actfordev.org<\/p>\n #nutritioncantwait #SUNPooledFund<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/a>[1]Basic Package of Health Services<\/p>\n <\/a>[i]https:\/\/www.humanitarianresponse.info\/en\/operations\/afghanistan\/document\/afghanistan-covid-19-multi-sectoral-response-operational-20<\/p>\n <\/a>[ii]OCHA \u2013 Afghanistan Humanitarian Response Plan, 2020<\/p>\n <\/a>[iii]see the\u00a0March 27th guidance brief for the Management of Child Wasting in the context of COVID-19, (https:\/\/acutemalnutrition.org\/en\/resource-library\/3BvzX2BOpSJTYBSoPcb2C0<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Under the no-cost extension of the SUN Pooled Fund Project Afghanistan, Action for Development (AfD), developed a project to train CHWs in Family MUAC\u00a0in 5 provinces in Afghanistan \u2013 Panjsher, Kabul, Dykundi, Bamyan, Jawzjan – selecting several districts in each province where training in Family MUAC will be provided to caregivers and female CHWs. Community health workers in Afghanistan work as a male-female couple and are based in a health post, serving a population of 1000-1500 per pair.\u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2783,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","entry","has-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/actfordev.org\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/actfordev.org\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/actfordev.org\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/actfordev.org\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/actfordev.org\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/actfordev.org\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/actfordev.org\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/actfordev.org\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/actfordev.org\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/actfordev.org\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.actfordev.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/MUAC-2-313x400.png\")
The Family MUAC<\/strong>approach provides a rapid screening for malnutrition, is a practical and scalable means to detect acute malnutrition at community level and is now widely recognised as an approach with huge potential to improve malnutrition outcomes.<\/p>\n\n
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Family MUAC and COVID-19<\/h4>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.actfordev.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/MUAC-3-400x292.png\")
The Family MUAC\u00a0<\/strong>approach is of particular interest during the COVID-19 pandemic.\u00a0 This approach is one of UNICEF and the Global Nutrition Cluster Technical Alliance (formerly GTAM)\u00a0priority actions to support preparation and response to acute malnutrition in the context of COVID-19<\/a>[iii].\u00a0 Additionally, Family MUAC\u00a0<\/strong>is a recommended measure to ensure continuity and safety of routine services for the early detection and treatment of child wasting in the context of COVID-19 in the WHO\/UNICEF Implementation Guidance for Wasting in Children in COVID-19<\/a>.<\/p>\nAction for Development\u2019s Family MUAC Project<\/h4>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.actfordev.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/MUAC-training-400x300.jpg\")
After development, the project was presented to nutrition partners in Afghanistan at the monthly Nutrition Cluster meeting in August.\u00a0 Preparation for project implementation began the following month at AfD\u2019s country office in Kabul, where four female health workers received \u2018Training of Trainers\u2019 training in Family<\/strong>MUAC\u00a0<\/strong>from Dr Dashti of the Ministry of Health\u2019s Public Nutrition Department (PND) [Photo].<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.actfordev.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Kalo-BHC-training-400x300.jpg\")
Training begins<\/h4>\nSupport for the Family MUAC Project<\/h4>\n
Next Steps<\/h4>\n
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