International agencies and other stakeholders working for the health and hygiene of kids in Jharkhand have vowed to intensify their activities to prevent and control diarrhoea, which is a major cause of high child mortality rate in the State.
Save the Children on Wednesday organised a stakeholders consultation on Diarrhoea Prevention and Control at a city based hotel where strategies to eradicate the deadly disease were formulated and discussed to be intensified.
“With an ambition to help reduce the burden of diarrhoea, our organisation will start a Diarrhoea Prevention and Control Programme at nine locations across six States of India through a ‘multi-stakeholder partnership’, enabling us to create evidence based and replicable model of diarrhoea prevention and control in India,” said Mahadev Hansda, State Programme Manager, Save the Children.
He said that the organisation will implement this programme in Saraiyahhat block of Dumka district. Besides, the programme will be implemented in West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Uttarakhand.
Presently, the Under Five Mortality of Children in Jharkhand stands at 51 per 1000 live births (AHS 2012-13). Experts informed that inadequate access to safe water, poor household and environmental sanitation, and poor hygiene practices are the underline cause of diarrhoea. In India, 17.6 per cent of the population do not have access to clean and safe drinking water.
In Jharkhand only 22 per cent of the people have access to basic sanitation facility. Besides, only 12.9per cent of the populations have access to tap water facility thus a massive chance of Diarrhoea. As per the latest Annual health survey (AHS 2012-13), 7.7 percent of the children in Jharkhand are suffering from Diarrhoea. Surprisingly more urban children (8.4 per cent) are suffering from the disease than rural ones (7.5 per cent). Of the suffering population around 84.2 per cent children received WHO HAF/ORS/ORT and Zinc. The highest prevalence of the disease has been found in Dhanbad which is 14.5 percent, Dumka (13.8 per cent), Pakaur (16.2 percent) and lohardagga (10.8 percent).
Speaking at the event Job Zachariah, Chief UNICEF Jharkhand said that it was time to act. “Our surveys shows that in rural areas 92 per cent of the population defecate in open (Census 2011). Due to this open defecation around 70-80 per cent of the water have microbiological content. We need to rope in Self Help Groups and Women Groups for dissemination of diarrhoea prevention and control messages,” he added.
Dr. Sunita Katyayan, member State Commission for protection of child rights informed that we need to promote the correct usage of ORS. “The family members should be well informed on the quantity of water to be used in preparing ORS. Any dilution of concentration will affect the effectiveness of ORS,” she added.