A Review of Vitamin A Supplementation in South Sudan: Successes, Challenges, and Opportunities for the Way Forward.

Aim: To identify vitamin A supplementation (VAS) trends in South Sudan and provide insights to refocus VAS programming vis a vis polio eradication campaigns recently phased out while access to health care, land, food, and markets remain challenging.

Method: Review of data from survey and coverage reports; review of policy and program documents; key informant responses; general literature search.

Results: Vitamin A deficiency (VAD) is likely a severe public health problem among preschool-aged children in South Sudan based on a high under-5 mortality rate (96.

Childhood Stunting and Wasting Following Independence in South Sudan.

Background: South Sudan has experienced ongoing civil and environmental problems since gaining independence in 2011 that may influence childhood nutritional status.

Objective: To estimate the prevalence of undernutrition among children in South Sudan in 2018 and 2019 compared to the prevalence in 2010.

Methods: Data on height and weight were collected using a 2-stage stratified sample framework in which households were randomly selected at the county level and nutritional status was calculated for all children under 5 years of age to determine height-for-age, weight-for-height, and weight-for-age Z-scores (HAZ, WHZ, and WAZ) and the prevalence of stunting, wasting, and underweight.

Can we predict the burden of acute malnutrition in crisis-affected countries? Findings from Somalia and South Sudan.

Background: Sample surveys are the mainstay of surveillance for acute malnutrition in settings affected by crises but are burdensome and have limited geographical coverage due to insecurity and other access issues. As a possible complement to surveys, we explored a statistical approach to predict the prevalent burden of acute malnutrition for small population strata in two crisis-affected countries, Somalia (2014-2018) and South Sudan (2015-2018).

Methods: For each country, we sourced datasets generated by humanitarian actors or other entities on insecurity, displacement, food insecurity, access to services, epidemic occurrence and other factors on the causal pathway to malnutrition.

Assessing the Impact of Integrated Community-Based Management of Severe Wasting Programs in Conflict-Stricken South Sudan: A Multi-Dimensional Approach to Scalability of Nutrition Emergency Response Programs.

Community-based management of severe wasting (CMSW) programs have solely focused on exit outcome indicators, often omitting data on nutrition emergency preparedness and scalability. This study aimed to document good practices and generate evidence on the effectiveness and scalability of CMSW programs to guide future nutrition interventions in South Sudan. A total of 69 CMSW program implementation documents and policies were authenticated and retained for analysis, complemented with the analyses of aggregated secondary data obtained over five (2016-2020 for CMSW program performance) to six (wasting prevention) years (2014-2019).