01 January 2020
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report
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HMH Professional; ★

Discover the Best of Policy Brief: South Africa. Cost-effectiveness of Transitioning from Iron and Folic Acid to Multiple Micronutrient Supplementation for Pregnancy

HoldMyHand / 1 FoodGap / MMS

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The introduction and scale-up of multiple micronutrient supplementation (MMS) as part of maternal nutrition programming is an opportunity to accelerate progress towards several Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and World Health Assembly (WHA) Global Nutrition Targets 2025. Recent global evidence has concluded that antenatal MMS is superior to iron and folic acid supplementation (IFAS) in improving birth outcomes, and has equivalent benefits for preventing maternal anaemia (1,2,3). New analyses by Nutrition International in collaboration with Limestone Analytics (4) and others (5) have shown that MMS is more cost-effective compared to the existing IFAS programs in low and middle-income countries for achieving positive health outcomes. Given this new evidence, many countries with a high prevalence of nutritional deficiencies among women of reproductive age (WRA) are exploring the feasibility of transitioning from IFAS to MMS for antenatal care (ANC) programmes, within the context of the current World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines (6), but have concerns around the expected additional cost. The Nutrition International MMS Cost-Benefit Tool provides governments with country-specific information about the health benefits and budget impact of adopting MMS and helps to answer the policy question "is antenatal MMS better value for money than IFAS?" The MMS Cost-Benefit Tool provides government policymakers with the opportunity to strengthen their investment case for mobilizing domestic resources and policy considerations around MMS by providing a clear picture of both the financial impacts and health outcomes of the IFAS to MMS transition.
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