Monitoring and discharging children being treated for severe acute malnutrition using mid-upper arm circumference: secondary data analysis from rural Gambia

Severe acute malnutrition (SAM) is a major public health problem. Mid-upper arm circumference (MUAC) is widely used to admit children to treatment programmes. However, insufficient data supporting MUAC discharge criterion limits its use as a stand-alone tool. Our aim was to evaluate MUAC for monitoring nutritional recovery and discharge. This was a secondary analysis of clinical data from children 6–59 months-old treated for SAM from January...