Cuttack infant deaths look dwarf when in August alone the State has reported around 127 infant deaths every 24 hours.
Disconcerting is every day around 13 infants breathed their last within 24 hours of their birth in the State during the month ended on August 31 last. And every day around 80 newborn in State last month couldn’t live beyond one-month of their birth.
The risk of an infant’s survival born in State is evidenced from the fact that when a whopping 3,818 infants died last month, a mere 415 children in the age-group of 1 - 5 years died in August. This contrasting figure available with the State Health Department clearly underscores the poor infant health scenario in State. The mortality chart analysis by the department brings to fore the fact that over 48 per cent of newborn deaths were neither due to sepsis, asphyxia, low Birth Weight (lBW) nor due to pneumonia, diarrhoea, fever and measles. Sources in Unicef here attribute these deaths to malaria, anaemia and malnutrition.
According to the data on infant deaths available with the Health Department, around 3,818 infant deaths were reported across the State in August - of which as many as 386 died within 24 hours of their birth. Over 2,200 died before completion of their 4th week of birth and around 1,036 couldn’t live beyond their first birthday. It was observed that while over 45 per cent of infants below 1-month died due to diseases other than sepsis, asphyxia and lBW, around 80 per cent deaths of infants below 1-year were due to afflictions other than pneumonia, diarrhoea, fever and measles. This brings to fore the fact that, though, around 65 per cent infants below 1-year age were affected by diarrhoea but the mortalities were mere 0.3 per cent of total infant deaths. Similarly, only 0.1 per cent infant deaths were by measles. However, pneumonia still accounts for over 5 per cent of total infant deaths. This shows State gaining dominance over diseases prevented by vaccines as mortalities have seen a big drop.
As over 34 per cent of children in age-group of 0 - 5 years were affected by malaria and over 71 per cent afflicted by anaemia, experts observed that it is this lethal combination of malaria and anaemia that made the cases critical, which then pegged the infant mortality toll higher in State over the years. Around 60 - 70 per cent infant mortalities were reported by around 14 districts only. Mayurbhanj tops the chart. Moreover, the load of infant deaths and the reason behind is also not uniform across the State, suggests the data. For instance, two high-burden districts like Baleswar and Balangir prove the case.
While asphyxia and sepsis were the top causes behind infant deaths in Baleswar, lBW is the dominant factor behind infant deaths in Balangir. Also, deaths due to ‘other diseases’ in Balangir is nearly 2-times that of Baleswar.