Aid cuts put a lifesaving ‘wonder food’ on the brink: RUTF shortages could hit East Africa within weeks

Thursday 28th August 2025

非洲记者报道

Save the Children warned today that at least four African countries—including Kenya, Somalia and South Sudan—are on track to run out of ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) within three months, with Kenya’s pipeline expected to break as early as October unless funding gaps are plugged. The alarm underscores how a quiet supply-chain crisis can turn deadly for malnourished children, even when the treatment is a proven, low-cost paste that doesn’t require cooking, water or refrigeration.

RUTF—popularly known through brands like Plumpy’Nut—has transformed care for severe acute malnutrition, lifting recovery rates and enabling home-based treatment. But the model depends on steady donor purchases, predictable shipping and last-mile delivery. Over the past year, that system has been hit by sharp aid reductions, factory slowdowns, and conflict-driven access constraints. UNICEF and other agencies have warned repeatedly that funding cuts are ripping holes in nutrition programs from the Horn of Africa to the Sahel, with knock-on effects now visible in clinic closures and bare shelves.

The numbers are sobering. UNICEF estimates almost 13 million children are acutely malnourished in Eastern and Southern Africa in 2025, with nearly 4 million facing severe acute malnutrition—the cohort most likely to die without RUTF. When shipments stall, health workers pivot to triage: prioritizing the most critical cases while turning others away to wait for the next delivery that may not arrive. In parts of the region, aid groups report patients traveling long distances only to find programs paused for lack of supplies.

What’s different this time is how fast pipelines are emptying. According to Save the Children, Kenya needs roughly 105,000 cartons to cover treatment through December; current stocks cover about 77%, creating a likely October break. Somalia and South Sudan face similar gaps. Those figures are not worst-case scenarios—they are based on expected caseloads and existing budgets. Add a flood, an epidemic or a market shock, and the math worsens.

Global context makes the outlook tougher. Aid agencies are managing simultaneous crises (from Sudan to Gaza) while confronting budget cuts that force painful trade-offs. WHO and UNICEF have both flagged program reductions ahead; independent reporting has documented how specialized nutrition supplies are stuck in warehouses or delayed by financing gaps. In practical terms, that means clinicians may soon lack the one product most closely linked with child survival during hunger emergencies.

For East African governments—including Tanzania, which is not currently flagged for imminent RUTF stock-out—the lesson is to treat the regional pipeline as a shared lifeline. Proactive steps could include: waiving or expediting import charges on therapeutic foods; ensuring fast-track border clearance; coordinating donor co-financing to buffer national stocks; and using regional procurement to hedge supply risks. In border regions where families cross for care, a clinic without RUTF on one side can quickly spill excess demand onto the other, overwhelming facilities. (Analysis.)

Ultimately, the cost curve still favors action: a course of RUTF averages $45–$65 per child in many programs, far less than hospital care for complications of untreated wasting. With El Niño-linked shocks and conflict pressures ongoing, keeping the paste flowing is the difference between a reversible emergency and a generational loss. The warning from Nairobi today is clear: the clock is ticking, and the fix—fund and move the cartons—is as concrete as humanitarian problems get.