Fig. 2

Probability of failure to achieve and maintain nutritional recovery during treatment and follow-up to 6 months from enrolment in the two study groups. Failure of nutritional recovery was defined as dead, non-response to treatment after 12 weeks, a defaulter, a relapse to either SAM or MAM or unknown at 6 months from enrolment. Children were right censored where their nutritional recovery was defined as a WHZ ≥ −1.5 (WHO Growth Standards 2006) or MUAC ≥125 mm and absence of bilateral oedema and they did not relapse. Survival curves of the two groups were compared using the Cox regression analyses with robust estimates of the variance to account for clustering at the health centre level, and P value was performed with the robust score test (HR = 0.24, 95% CI 015 to 0.39; P < 0.001)