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New Delhi: Despite the
government's efforts to improve maternal and child health, the
latest report released by UNICEF shows India had the highest
number of deaths of children under five years of age in 2011.
World Health Organisation (WHO) India Representative Nata Menabde,
however, says that given the size of the population, absolute
numbers will always be high in case of India. This should not
overshadow the fact that the country has made significant progress
in the field of health.
Social activist Ranjana Kumari says that the poor condition of
maternal health and nutrition are to blame for the high mortality
of children under five years old.
"High mortality among children is linked to maternal health
directly. Most women do not get sufficient nutrition, and the
child is born weak. We also have high maternal mortality rates,"
she says.
"Because of lack of nutrition, the child's immunity is low. Even
though the government has many schemes, there are leakages. For
example, we have the Janani Suraksha Yojana which provides
facilities for institutional delivery. But primary health centres
are not in good condition, " she says, stressing that the quality
of the public health system has a role to play in the statistics
revealed in the UNICEF report.
The UNICEF report, released Thursday in New York, says almost
19,000 children less than five years of age die every day across
the world. India tops the list of countries for 2011, with the
highest number of such deaths at 16.55 lakh.
As per the report, even as overall child mortality in the world
has gone down, under-five deaths are increasingly concentrated in
sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. In 2011, 82 percent of
under-five deaths occurred in these two regions, up from 68
percent in 1990.
In 2011, about half of global under-five deaths occurred in just
five countries: India, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the
Congo, Pakistan and China. Though on the top of list in terms of
absolute numbers, in terms of child mortality rate, India ranks
49th with 61 deaths per thousand children in 2011. Sierra Leone
has the highest child mortality rate of 185 per thousand.
"There has been lot of improvement in last couple of years, with
interventions like the National Rural Health Mission. In most
areas, India will hopefully come close to the MDGs (Millennium
Development Goals)," WHO's India Representative Menabde said at a
press conference here.
The MDGs are eight international development goals that all member
states of the UN agreed to achieve by 2015. One of the MDGs is to
reduce under-five mortality rate of 42 per 1,000 live births by
2015.
According to projections by WHO, India will reach 52 percent by
that year, missing the target by 10 percentage points.
"India may not achieve the MDG, but will come close to the target.
It is important to maintain the pace even after the time period of
the MDGs, so that the projections can be achieved," Menabde said.
According to the UNICEF report, China reported 2.49 lakh deaths of
under-5 children last year, followed by 1.94 lakh by Ethiopia and
1.34 lakh each by Indonesia and Bangladesh.
Uganda with 1.31 lakh such deaths and Afghanistan with 1.28 lakh
deaths held the ninth and 10th position in the list of 10 top
countries reporting under-five children deaths.
On the positive side, however, the report shows that the overall
number of under-five deaths worldwide has decreased from nearly 12
million in 1990 to less than 7 million in 2011, and the rate of
the decline has been steadily increasing.
"The rate of decline in under-five mortality has drastically
accelerated in the last decade - from 1.8 percent per year during
the 1990s to 3.2 percent per year between 2000 and 2011," the
report says.
For the overall drop in child mortality, the report credits
improvements in nutrition, access to vaccines and treatment,
better post-natal care and the use of insecticide-treated mosquito
nets. It also says that long-term strategy to improve girls'
education has had a positive role in reducing child mortality.
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