For Odisha, it’s a moment of emergency health reckoning. The State has topped the nation in the death rates of diarrhoeal diseases, rheumatic heart disease and urinary diseases and finished the second highest nationally in death rate owing to strokes.
Besides this, the State has also a mean death rate that is significantly higher than the national mean in lethal diseases ranging from cancer, TB, respiratory infections to kidney ailments.
Such revelations have been made by a report titled ‘India Health of the Nation’s States report-2017,’ which was released on Tuesday. The report has been jointly prepared by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) that tracked the disease burden and transitions of the nation and the States for a long period of 1990 to 2016.
According to the report, a national high of 129 deaths per lakh population in Odisha is owing to diarrhoea whereas a high of 98 deaths per lakh in the State is caused by strokes. In both the cases, the national mean stood at a mere 59 and 53 per lakh, respectively.
Also, around 24 deaths per lakh population in 2016 in Odisha has been attributed to chronic kidney disease and around 12 per lakh to rheumatic heart disease vis-a-vis the national mean of 18 and 8 per lakh, respectively.
While around 12 deaths per lakh population in Odisha in 2016 has been attributed to urinary disorders, which is highest in the country as the national average stood at only 5.
The report further added that with a death of 10, 9 and 7 per lakh owing to diseases like diabolic ailments like hepatitis, other cancers and stomach cancers, respectively, the State’s respective mean death rates stood significantly higher than the national averages of around 5 per lakh population.
As per the report on deaths, Odisha age group-wise in 2016, when a whopping 38 per cent of the total deaths in 0-14 years age group is attributed to neonatal disorders, a high of around 15 per cent of deaths in the productive age group of 14-39 years were due to neurological disorders. And a significant 28-26 per cent of deaths in the age group of 40-69 and 70+ are attributed to cardiovascular diseases.
Diarrhoea and lower respiratory infections form the top cause of death in the 70+ age-groups in the State whereas both the diseases form the second top contributor to the death burden in the age group of 0-14 years. This shows diarrhoea disease haunts the State’s citizens from cradle to twilight years, which points to grave deficits in access to safe drinking water and sanitation as both are the primary causative factors behind the disease.
HIV and TB have been the second-most contributors to the death burden in Odisha in the age group of 14-39 years last year, the report revealed. Significantly, malaria and neglected tropical diseases like encephalitis were the third-most contributors to death burden in the age groups of 0-14 and 14-39 years, respectively.
Above all, when iron-deficiency anaemia was the top cause of years lived with disability among females, its sense organ diseases were in males.