The Hindu : National : Child malnutrition a major challenge: UNICEF

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Thursday, Dec 13, 2007
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Child malnutrition a major challenge: UNICEF

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Malnutrition among 35 per cent children aged below five and close to 9.4 million children outside the immunisation network is the biggest challenge that India needs to overcome to achieve the millennium development goals.

While the under-five mortality rate, institutional deliveries and primary education enrolment have shown a marked improvement, underweight births, sanitation and neonatal mortality are some issues that need to be addressed urgently, according to a report “A World Fit for Children – Statistical Review” released by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on Monday.

“Whatever India does affects the world. And India has to make progress to make the world move,” said Gianni Murzi, UNICEF representative while releasing the report.

About one-third of the world’s underweight children under age five live in India.

The States with the highest number of underweight children are Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Bihar, followed by Gujarat, Orissa, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh and Meghalaya.

India also has the largest pool of never immunised (including DPT and polio) children in the world – 9.4 million.

Infant mortality in India stands at 21 per cent, and maternal deaths are as high as 23 per cent.

Twenty-seven per cent of the population is not using improved sanitation facilities resulting in water-borne diseases and subsequent deaths.

The under-five mortality rate for India in 2006 was estimated as 76.

Although India has made progress in bringing down child mortality, the average annual rate of reduction in under-five mortality between 1990 and 2006 has been 2.6 per cent that needs to be improved to 7.6 per cent per year in the next nine years to reach the millennium development goal of 38 by 2015, according to the report.

India also accounts for a quarter — one million —of all neo-natal deaths in the world and one of the cost-effective and feasible interventions to improve this situation is breastfeeding.

Of the 19 million infants in the developing world with low birth weights, 8.3 million are in India.

On the positive side, India is on track to meet the millennium development goal on safe drinking water with 84.5 per cent rural and 95 per cent urban populations having sustainable access to potable water.

However, only 45 per cent of the households in the country use improved sanitation facilities.

Another area of concern is the non-registration of births in India.

About nine million children have not been registered in India in 2006 while only 27 per cent of children under five years have a birth certificate. India also accounts for 18 per cent of the world’s burden of child labour and an estimated 22 million women in 2005-06 were married below the age of 18.

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