ON INFANT MORTALITY: Medical director of the Basaveshwar Teaching and General Hospital P.S. Shankar speaking at a programme in Gulbarga city on Thursday.

GULBARGA: The infant mortality rate continues to be very high in the country with more than 1.2 million infants dying out of the 26 million live births every year. One of the main reasons for the high infant mortality is the failure to immunise newborn babies against diseases such as measles, polio, BCG, diphtheria, tetanus, tuberculosis and typhoid.

Medical director of the Basaveshwar Teaching and General Hospital and Mahadevappa Rampure Medical College P.S. Shankar in the inaugural address, to launch an awareness campaign on the need for covering newborn babies under the immunisation programme here on Thursday, said despite the launch of the programme in 1985, coverage of children continued to be low, for every 1,000 live births 44 infants died in the State. Although the infant mortality rate in Karnataka was lower than the national average of 70 for every 1,000 live births (the under five mortality rate is 101 for every 1,000 live births) it was high compared to Kerala (1,000:10), but relatively better than Bihar (60 for every1,000 live births).

Dr. Shankar said another reason for infant mortality was the high number of premature births and low-weight babies.

Paediatrician W. Shrikant said initially the mass immunisation programme against common infections was introduced in 1978 throughout the country and when the coverage was found to be low after an evaluation, the universal immunisation programme was introduced in India in 1985 and concentrated on target population of infants under one year and pregnant women.

Dr. Shrikant said coverage under the immunisation programme in India continued to be low compared to countries such as China, Indonesia and Pakistan.

According to statistics, India ranked 49th in the under five mortality rate and more than 70 per cent of child mortality occurred during infancy. Dr. Shrikant said another reason for the poor coverage under the immunisation programme was the thrust given to the pulse polio programme while other vaccinations were neglected.

He said 20 per cent of child mortality worldwide occurred in India. The programme for creating mass awareness on the need for covering all children under the universal immunisation programme was organised by the Basaveshwar Hospital, M.R. Medical College, NSS Unit, and the Government Teachers' Training Institute.

As part of the programme, more than 200 students undergoing training in the institute and NSS volunteers will visit 10,000 houses in the city and urge parents to have their children immunised under the programme.

Dean of M.R. Medical College Mallikarjun Bhandari said in Basaveshwar Hospital children were being provided immunisation vaccines free of cost. Dr. Shankar launched a programme "Month's healthy child".

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail