multi-micronutrient sprinkles

I haven't implemented a project myself just yet but working towards that. Find below links that believe will best inform you about MNPs. I sure believe there is a place for them in public health :)

1) http://www.sghi.org/
[Check the resource centre of the site for publication on MNPs]

2) WHO’s new (2011) guideline on MNPs http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2011/9789241502047_eng.pdf

Don't forget that Kenya officially endorsed MNPs as a strategy to reduce micronutrient deficiency in late 2011. CDC, UNICEF, and PSI are institutions that you can reach out in Kenya for more on this.

Good luck
Abel

There are quite a few studies. You could start with these journal issues that each contain several.

Food and Nutrition Bulletin 2010 Jun;31(2 Suppl):S179-85
Maternal & Child Nutrition 2009 Apr;5(2):151-8

Hope that helps

Surely multi-micronutrient sprinkles are a short term, extremely expensive and highly unsustainable approach to dealing with a nutrition crisis? I accept that they may help in cases where you have access to people for a prolongued period of time and the lack of micronutrients is obvious (in diet and in health indicators generally). But in this case surely it makes more sense to teach people how to grow some basic vegetable or fruits. Soil can be made with rapid compost systems within 3 weeks, and food emerging a few weeks thereafter. Would this not be a wiser approach and a better use of funds?

I should stress I'm not a nutrition expert, nor are these necessarily the views of DFID (with whom I work on flood response in Pakistan). But I am supporting a permaculture design programme there to create gardens and fruit orchards for 5,000 families with a view to increase access to micro-nutrients, one of the leading causes of the major nutrition crisis there. But I would be happy to hear all views - including the financial analysis (ie is it the best use of limited funds to buy imported "magic" sprinkles that are finished as soon as the programme ends?).

CDC supported a Sprinkles Project in Nyando, Kenya using beneficiaries of the Safe Water and AIDS Project (SWAP) to reach the communities. An impact study may be available for consideration. Some information is available on line.