Supply Chain Optimization for Acute Malnutrition Treatment in Sub-Saharan Africa

Malnutrition is the leading cause of child death internationally and treatment reaches only a small fraction of those in need. Treatment is costly due to inefficient supply chains and expensive ingredients. Recent initiatives by aid organizations have demonstrated the potential cost savings in more localized supply chains. Here I develop a tool to inform production and distribution decisions of acute malnutrition treatment as a capacitated facility location model. The supply chain of acute malnutrition treatment is optimized based on published ingredient, factory, and transport costs to (a) minimize cost while treating the full caseload or (b) maximize cases treated on a set budget. A validation based on the current UNICEF supply chain returned values within 3.2% of actual costs. The model is able to evaluate the savings of using novel local treatment recipes instead of the current milk-based treatments. The model suggests that scaling up implementation of novel recipes could reduce total procurement costs by 25% while supporting local economies. A parameter study of the variable costs identifies cost drivers and recommends countries that are suitable for investment in local production despite possible market shifts. This study demonstrates that supply chain modeling strategies can be applied to inform large-scale nutrition interventions.