HEALTH

Centre says incidences of TB, HIV, malaria halted and reversed

jp-nadda (File) Health Minister J.P. Nadda

Days after the Global Disease Burden 2016 study, published in the medical journal Lancet, pointed out that the highest number of deaths among kids under the age of five years occurred in India, the Centre announced that there was "considerable progress" in under-five mortality.

At a Cabinet briefing on Wednesday, J.P. Nadda, Union minister for health and family welfare, said that the rate of decline in under-five mortality had doubled. The annual rate of decline during 2010-2015 has accelerated to 6.1 per cent from 3.7 per cent in 1990-2010.

To meet the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals for child mortality, India will need to maintain the current trajectory of under five mortality, and accelerate decline in neonatal mortality from 2015 onwards, another analysis in Lancet, published on Tuesday, says. According to this paper, continued progress in reduction of child mortality due to pneumonia, diarrhoea, malaria, and measles for these children is "feasible", and "additional attention" to low birth weight children is required.

With respect to malaria, TB, and HIV/AIDS, the millennium development goal of "halting and reversing" the incidence of these diseases had also been achieved. The minister's claims about "halting" is disputed by data available on each of these diseases. For instance, according to National Aids Control Organisation, the number of people living with HIV is estimated at 21.17 lakhs.

However, officials from the ministry clarified that the minister's statement only meant that the incidence of these diseases had decreased. For instance, in the case of TB, the incidence had gone down from 289 persons per lakh in 2000 to 217 lakh persons in 2015, and mortality had reduced from 56 per lakh to 36 per lakh in the same time period.

Nadda also said that the spread of the disease of kala azar had also been reduced—number of endemic blocks with prevalence of more than one case of kala azar per 10,000 population was 230 in 2010. In 2016, that number had gone down to 94 blocks.

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Topics : #health

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