India’s maternal mortality rate sees sharp fall
Here is a good news. The maternal mortality rate (MMR) has dropped down substantially by 34 points, an indication that India is well on track to achieve United Nations proposed Millennium Development Goals (MDG), 2015. According to the recent figures, India’s MMR for 2010-2012 stands at 178 deaths per 1,00,000 live births against the earlier figure of 212 deaths per 1,00,000 live births (2007-2009).
While states like Rajathan, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh saw the steepest decline, Haryana, Tamil Nadu and Orissa are in the bottom of the pile. According to officials in the health ministry, the way India is progressing shows that India is well on track. “India has to reach the figure of 150 deaths per 1,00,000 live births by 2015 and we are quite hopeful that we will be able to achieve the target easily,” additional secretary in the ministry Anuradha Gupta said.
With the annual rate of decline of 5.7 per cent, officials say that it indicates that access to health information and services made available to married adolescents have helped in reducing the MMR.
By and large the decline has been steady across the country. The annual rate of decline has been recorded lowest in Kerala, followed by Mahrashtra and Tamil Nadu. Andhra Pradesh saw a drastic decline of 110 with West Bengal at 117. The MMR in southern states fell 17 per cent from 127 to 105, closer to the MDGs. Assam and Uttar Pradesh/Uttarakhand were the worst performing states, with an MMR of 328 and 292, respectively. Kerala and Tamil Nadu have surpassed the MDG with an MMR of 66 and 90, respectively.
The data comes two years after the a senior representative of World Health Organisation (WHO) claimed that India would not be able to achieve the targets. Citing that India will miss the target of under five mortality rate and maternal mortality rate (MMR), the WHO had said that India will be able to achieve its unfinished targets only after 2015. However, based on the trends, health ministry said that they are working well.
As per the MDG targets, the MMR is to be reduced by three quarters between 1990 to 2015. India has been observing an average annual decline of 5.5 per cent. “Assuming that the annual rate of decline of 5.5 per cent observed between 2004-2006 and 2007-2009 will continue, India’s MMR will decline well below the MDG target. It is an indication that various strategies introduced by the government are on track. We are confident that India will see further drastic drop as many new schemes that would help further fall in the MMR were introduced after this survey,” added Ms Gupta.
Source: The Asian Age
Published: 17 Jan 2014
