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URC/CHS Projects
Health & Population
NuLife-Food and Nutrition Interventions for Uganda
Client: United States Agency for International Development
NuLife–Food and Nutrition Interventions for Uganda is a three-year Cooperative Agreement, managed by University Research Co., LLC, with funding by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Launched on January 1, 2008, NuLife is designed to improve the health of nutritionally compromised people infected and affected by HIV by providing technical support to the Ministry of Health and its development partners, to develop and fully integrate food and nutrition interventions into HIV/AIDS programming–both clinical and community. In addition to the Uganda Ministry of Health, NuLife partners include Save the Children and ACDI-VOCA.
Strategic alliances have also been established with the World Food Program (WFP), TASO, the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, and Population Services International (PSI). Since launching the program in January, NuLife has fostered a number of additional relationships with the Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance Project (FANTA), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO), the Clinton Foundation, the Joint Clinical Research Commission (JCRC), Catholic Relief Services (CRS), Plan International and others.
NuLife builds on URC’s previous work in Uganda under the Quality Assurance Project (QAP), now URC's USAID Health Care Improvement Project (HCI). The project provided quality improvement under the Ministry of Health’s Quality of Care Initiative, as well as nutrition and HIV services. These efforts included technical assistance for development, adaptation, and implementation of guidelines, protocols, training materials, and assessment and referral tools for treatment of pediatric AIDS; treatment of severe acute malnutrition among infants and young children; and the prevention of mother to-child-transmission of HIV.
In this era of potent anti-retroviral therapy, malnutrition has been recognized as a significant problem and correlates directly to mortality for HIV patients. The degree of malnutrition is highest among patients with advanced illness due to decreased intake of quality foods, increased energy requirements, and mal-absorption. In addition, nutritional deficiencies in people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA) begin early and often go unrecognized. Optimizing nutritional status is a key objective in comprehensive management of HIV clients. NuLife is working to improve the quality of life of PLHA and to increase utilization and adherence to anti-retrovirals (ARVs), as well as improve the effectiveness of AIDS treatment through food and nutrition interventions that complement anti-retroviral therapy. NuLife seeks to reach these goals through three primary interventions: 1) food and nutrition assessment; 2) nutrition counseling and care; and 3) therapeutic feeding for both severely and moderately malnourished PLHA.
The specific program objectives include:
- Provide technical and financial support to the Ministry of Health (MoH), community-based and non-governmental organizations, PLHA Networks and United States Government-supported implementing partners, and district health teams to integrate food and nutrition interventions in HIV/AIDS prevention, care, and treatment programs;
- Develop a nationally acceptable Ready-to-Use-Therapeutic Foods (RuTF) using locally available ingredients; and
- Establish a system for effective development and delivery of RuTF to severely malnourished people living with and affected by HIV/AIDS, including orphans and other children affected by HIV/AIDS.
URC Services
- Support update and/or development of guidelines and tools, and the organization of training activities, in close collaboration with the MOH and other collaborating organizations.
- Through use of the Improvement Collaborative model, spread nutritional assessments and care tools and disseminate information to health facilities.
- Use the community management of malnutrition (CMAM) model to strengthen the continuum of care between the home and health facility.
- Work closely with PLHA associations, non-governmental organizations, community-based organizations and other community stakeholders, including the HIV/AIDS Alliance, for community mobilization; development of CMAM models; and improvement of access to services, including sustainable livelihood activities.
- Develop a nationally acceptable RUTF, produced from locally available foods, for distribution to severely malnourished PLHA and others affected by HIV/AIDS.
- Design a distribution system for RUTF, both in the short and long term, working with stakeholders from existing Supply Chain Management Systems, ACDI/VOCA, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Clinton Foundation, Uganda’s AIDS Support Organization (TASO), and others.
Geographic Focus
National
For more information
Please contact Peggy Koniz-Booher, Chief of Party, at pkoniz_booher@urc-chs.com.
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