India’s under-5 girls face high mortality: UN Report
India is among the few countries in the world where, in 2018, the mortality under-5 years of girls, exceeded that of boys, according to the ‘Levels and Trends in Child Mortality’ report by the United Nations (UN) inter-agency group for child mortality.
The global report states that in 2018 fewer countries showed gender disparities in child mortality, and across the world, on average, boys are expected to have a higher probability of dying before reaching age-5 than girls. But this trend was not reflected in India.
How the estimates are made?
“The burden of child mortality is determined both by the mortality rate (the proportion of children who die) and by the estimated population of any given State (total number of annual births). In this sense, Uttar Pradesh is the State with the highest number of estimated newborn deaths in India, both because of the high neonatal mortality rate and because of the large cohort of births that occur every year in the State,” noted information released by UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund).
Key Highlights of the Report
- According to the report, half of all under-5 deaths in 2018 occurred in five countries: India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia. India and Nigeria alone account for about a third.
- As per India’s 2017 Sample Registration System (SRS) the States with the highest burden of neonatal mortality are:
- Madhya Pradesh – 32/1000 neonatal deaths
- Odisha – 33/1000 neonatal deaths
- Uttar Pradesh – 30/1000 neonatal deaths
- India’s neonatal mortality rate – 23 per 1,000 live births.
- Also States and Union Territories, Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttarakhand showed the largest gender gaps in under-5 mortality.
- Estimates indicate that the majority of child mortality cases in India are attributable to deaths during the neonatal period. The major causes of neonatal mortality are pre-term birth, intrapartum related events, and neonatal infection. In the post-neonatal period, the major direct causes of death are diarrhoea and pneumonia.
- Despite witnessing tremendous progress in child survival that has been made over the past two decades, one child or young adolescent died every five seconds in 2018.
- Globally, 85% of deaths among children and young adolescents in 2018 occurred in the first five years of life, accounting for 5.3 million deaths, of which 2.5 million (47%) occurred in the first month of life, 1.5 million (29%) at age 1-11 months, and 1.3 million (25%) at age 1-4 years. An additional 0.9 million deaths occurred among children aged 5-14 years.
- Newborn mortality is not decreasing as quickly as mortality among children aged 1 to 59 months.
- Globally, the under-five mortality rate has dropped by more than half (1990-2018), but inequities persist among and within countries.
About the Report
- The United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UN IGME) produces estimates of child and young adolescent mortality annually, reconciling the differences across data sources and taking into account the systematic biases associated with the various types of data on child and adolescent mortality.
- This report presents the UN IGME’s latest estimates – through 2018 – of neonatal, infant and under-five mortality as well as mortality among children aged 5–14 years.
- It assesses progress in the reduction of child and young adolescent mortality at the country, regional and global levels, and provides an overview of the methods used to estimate the mortality indicators mentioned above.
SOURCE: The Hindu, www.who.int, www.unicef.org
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