India Needs to Buck up its Child Health Care

Anuradha Gupta, a senior official at the Health Ministry said, “If a child dies of a preventable cause, it is a huge tragedy and the nation has to get its act together and intensify efforts to make sure it doesn’t happen,” as reported by the Wall Street Journal.

The new national screening policy is a positive trend builder among health care programs that focuses on children worldwide. Globally 6.9 million children under-five died in 2012, an unfortunate statics, however is shows a drastic improvement from the 2011 figure of 7.6 million.

Chief of USAID, Rajiv Shah said, “India is the most important country in the world when it comes to saving children’s lives and if they can achieve success and we can support it, the world will be well on its way to achieving an extraordinary and historic result of ensuring that every single child around the world lives to see their fifth birthday,” as reported by the WSJ.

An average drop of 7.25 percent in child mortality was recorded in 2010 and 2011 in India. When data is segregated, it becomes easier to learn that a child’s survival rate greatly dependent on geographic location, class, caste and gender.

Also Read: India to Fail UN Goals for Poverty, Infant Mortality