United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG) set in the year 2000 was to reduce the under-five mortality rate in 2015 to one-third of the 1990 figure.
Business
Standard : India had more deaths among children under five
than any other country in 2015, with large disparities in the child
mortality rate between richer and poorer states, a Lancet study
has found.
The
researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in
the US analysed state-level Indian data on the causes of death among
children under five for the years 2000-2015.
They
found that India made great progress during the period, reducing
annual mortality among children under five from 2.5 million in 2000
to 1.2 million in 2015 -- which was still the highest in the world.
However,
among India's states, great disparities remained: The highest
mortality rate in Assam was more than seven times that in Goa.
Although most under-five deaths were due to preterm complications,
preventable infectious diseases featured prominently as causes of
death in higher-mortality states.
"India
can accelerate its reduction of under-five mortality rates by scaling
up vaccine coverage and improving childbirth and neonatal care,
especially in states where mortality rates remain high," said Li
Liu, PhD, assistant professor at the Bloomberg School.
Using
data sources from Indian
government health surveys, the team assessed total mortality,
mortality rates and causes of mortality for children under five in 25
states. United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG) set in the
year 2000 was to reduce the under-five mortality rate in 2015 to
one-third of the 1990 figure.
For
India that would have meant reducing the under-five mortality rate to
39 deaths per 1,000 live births.
The
analysis showed, however, that despite great progress since 1990 --
and even since 2000 when the under-five mortality rate was 90.5
deaths per 1,000 live births -- India in 2015 was still well above
the MDG target, at 47.8 deaths per 1,000 live births. Most (57.9 per
cent) of deaths among Indian children under five in 2015 occurred in
the first four weeks of life -- the neonatal period.
Countrywide,
the leading cause of death for children under five was preterm birth
complications, which accounted for 27.5 per cent of the mortality
total. However, second on the list for cause-of-death was pneumonia
(15.9 per cent of deaths), and infectious illnesses were more often
among the top causes in the poorer, high-mortality states.
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