Supply

The UNICEF RUTF Market Dashboard is an interactive tool for partners, manufacturers and countries, providing up-to-date information on the delivery of RUTF to treat severe wasting in children under 5 years of age. The RUTF Market Dashboard is the go-to public resource for the latest information on RUTF deliveries by UNICEF and the product’s global market.

UNICEF has developed the first Healthy Market Framework (HMF) for the RUTF market, which underlines UNICEF’s responsibility to children and its commitment to transparency and sharing in-depth market knowledge. Inspired by HMFs for vaccines and related products, the HMF for RUTF sets out details of market attributes and defines  and rates these attributes in a global framework. The HMF also lays out the methodology and tools to evaluate market health, prioritize interventions and analyse trade-offs.

The Codex Guidelines for Ready to Use Therapeutic Foods, adopted in November 2022, define RUTF as a food for special medical purposes and set out requirements for the nutritional composition RUTF and food safety. The Codex Guidelines  also enable the development of new versions of this life-saving product that are best suited for the local context. Governments can now use the Codex Guidelines to regulate manufacturers as they scale up RUTF production to tackle the malnutrition crisis currently affecting millions of children.

The WHO Model List of Essential Medicines (EML) is updated and published every two years. It is intended as a guide for countries or regional authorities that can be adopted or adapted in accordance with local priorities and treatment guidelines. In 2023, RUTF was added to the EML for the first time – an important step that will facilitate the procurement and inclusion of RUTF into the essential medicines lists of national governments.