Greater Noida: Paediatricians from across India on Monday discussed a roadmap to bring down the mortality rate of children under the age of 5 to less than 25 out of 1,000 born in a year by 2025.
“Every year, out of 1000 children, 55 die under the age of five years due to health complications. With the aim to reduce mortalities by 2025, paediatricians from across the country gathered at the 59th conference of Indian Academy of Paeditricians at Greater Noida,” said Dr Arvind Garg, a Noida-based paediatrician.
Doctors said they discussed a module for use by (Accredited Social Health Activist) and Anganwadi workers as a reference tool to identify over 100 diseases related to children. This is based on research done by 100 paediatricians in the last 10 years.
“The government too is prioritizing the issue through a programme that aims to reduce mortality rate among children less than 5 years of age. For the purpose, parameters like adequate information among parents, institutional deliveries, delivery by trained health care staff, life-saving vaccination and adequate nutrition will play a crucial role,” added Dr Garg.
Experts said respiratory infections, preterm birth, diarrhoeal diseases, birth asphyxia and trauma are the leading causes of deaths for children under the age of 5 in India.
According to the National Family Health Survey-5, the mortality ratio of children under the age of 5 years was 59.8 (out of 1,000) in Uttar Pradesh in 2019-21. This was 78.1 in 2015-16.
The state has, however, shown improvement in other parameters such as institutional deliveries.
Around 83% children were born in medical facilities in the state in 2019 and 21 – compared to the 67.8% calculated in the NFHS-4 survey. Around 400 people participated in the conference, which began on March 19 and will conclude on March 23.
