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Cost-effectiveness of a wetting method intervention to reduce cassava cyanide-related cognitive impairment in children

Nature Food volume 2, pages 469–472 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

Cassava cyanide-related neurocognitive impairment may persist for years in Central African children who rely on cassava as a dietary staple. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a cassava processing method, the ‘wetting method’, reduced cyanide in cassava, prevented konzo, and proved a cost-effective intervention to improve children’s cognitive development. Scaling up use of the wetting method may help prevent neurocognitive impairment in millions of at-risk children in sub-Saharan Africa.

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Fig. 1: Reduction of cyanide level in cassava flour following WTM intervention.

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Data availability

This work used data collected from a literature search which are listed in the Supplementary Information. All analyses are based on this collected dataset.

Code availability

The data were analysed with the statistical software R. The script can be made available upon request.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by Grand Challenges Canada Saving Brains Seed Grant 1809-18726 (M.J.B., E.K-A., F.W.), NIEHS/FIC grant R01ES01019841 (D.T-K., J.-P.B.M., D.M., M.J.B.) and USDA grant MICL02527 (F.W.). We dedicate this paper to our co-author Dr Jean-Pierre Banea Mayambu, who passed away on 13 September 2020. For over 30 years, Dr Banea was Director of the DRC’s National Nutrition Institute (PRONANUT). He was devoted to understanding and preventing konzo in the DRC and pioneered the wetting method in rural DRC to teach home caregivers how to treat cassava flour to reduce cyanide for improved food safety.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Deceased: Jean-Pierre Banea Mayambu.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Food Science & Human Nutrition, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    Chen Chen & Felicia Wu

  2. Centre for International Health, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

    Espérance Kashala-Abotnes

  3. National Nutrition Program, Ministry of Health, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo

    Jean-Pierre Banea Mayambu

  4. Department of Tropical Medicine, University of Kinshasa, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo

    Dieudonne Mumba Ngoyi

  5. Department of Neurology, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR, USA

    Désiré Tshala-Katumbay

  6. Department of Neurology, University of Kinshasa, Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo

    Désiré Tshala-Katumbay, Daniel Mukeba & Marcel Kunyu

  7. Department of Psychiatry and Department of Neurology & Ophthalmology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    Michael J. Boivin

  8. Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

    Felicia Wu

Authors
  1. Chen Chen
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Contributions

C.C. and F.W. conceived the study. C.C., E.K.-A., J.-P.B.M., D.M.N., D.T.-K., D.M., M.K., M.J.B. and F.W. implemented the analysis. C.C., M.J.B. and F.W. contributed to data interpretation. C.C., D.T.-K., M.J.B. and F.W. drafted the paper, and all authors contributed to the writing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Felicia Wu.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Peer review information Nature Food thanks Phoebe Alitubeera and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Fig. 1 and Table 1.

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Chen, C., Kashala-Abotnes, E., Banea Mayambu, JP. et al. Cost-effectiveness of a wetting method intervention to reduce cassava cyanide-related cognitive impairment in children. Nat Food 2, 469–472 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-021-00321-w

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