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World Children’s Day 2019 – has India progressed?

India celebrates Children’s Day every year on November 14th — a week earlier than the global celebration of World Children’s Day on November 20th. The earlier date marks the birthday of India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, informally known as Chacha Nehru (“Uncle Nehru”) among children. The day is celebrated by giving children treats, presents, …

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Pneumonia deaths: Fourteen children lost every hour

The world’s ‘forgotten epidemic’ of pneumonia is resulting in fourteen pneumonia deaths among children under five every hour in India.  In 2018, 127,000 children succumbed to pneumonia in India, according to a joint report of the Every Breath Counts Coalition, Save the Children, and UNICEF released earlier this month entitled ‘Fighting for Breath in India: …

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Child health: How climate change will affect it

“A child born today will experience a world that is more than four degrees warmer than the pre-industrial average, with climate change impacting human health from infancy and adolescence to adulthood and old age,” reads a report published yesterday by The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change – lending a chilling insight into the …

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World Diabetes Day: India’s growing crisis

Some regard India to be the diabetes capital of the world, its diabetic population outweighing the entire population of some nations. With November 14th marking World Diabetes Day, it provides an opportunity for India to appraise its diabetes crisis.  According to the International Diabetes Federation, diabetes affects 8.8 percent of India’s adult population with 72,946,400 …

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Pneumonia in West Bengal will be tackled: Banerjee

The state government is committed to addressing pneumonia in West Bengal, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has affirmed.  World Pneumonia Day was observed yesterday, with a grim reminder coming from UNICEF of the toll the disease takes on child health despite being preventable. Globally, a child is killed by the disease every 39 seconds. In India, …

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World Pneumonia Day: A child health scourge

Today marked World Pneumonia Day, which came with a chilling reminder from UNICEF: every day, the disease kills a child every 39 seconds. “Every day, nearly 2,200 children under the age of five die from pneumonia, a curable and mostly preventable disease,” commented UNICEF executive director Henrietta Fore. 800,000 children lose their lives to the …

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Maternal mortality ratio in decline

The maternal mortality ratio has declined in India in recent years according to recently unveiled Sample Registration System (SRS) data, boding good news for the nation’s mothers.  According to the figures, since 2013 maternal mortality has declined from 77 deaths per every lakh live births to seventy deaths for every lakh live births in southern …

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Infant and maternal health: Progress and challenges

A study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) has offered insight into India’s performance on infant and maternal health indicators, one of the most visceral issues threatening public health and development in the country. The study, which “assessed coverage, coverage change and inequity for eight maternal and newborn health care indicators in parts …

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Indradhanush 2: Government ramps up vaccination efforts

The Centre will expand its efforts to improve vaccination coverage throughout the country with “Indradhanush 2”, building on existing efforts to achieve ninety percent immunisation coverage against a plethora of infectious diseases. Launched in December 2014, Mission Indradhanush aimed to cover all children up to two years of age and pregnant women with vaccination coverage, …

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The hunger of a nation: What the GHI tells India

India has slipped on the International Food Policy Research Institute’s Global Hunger Index (GHI), ranking 102nd out of 117 countries.  Countries are scored by the GHI between zero and 100, with India scoring 30.3 – worse than the score for the South Asia region as a whole, which the GHI puts at 29.3. India fares …

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