28-Nov-2019: Acute Malnutrition in India
As per the report of Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey (CNNS) conducted by UNICEF during 2016-18, prevalence of severe acute malnutrition among children is 4.9%, which indicates further reduction when compared to the levels reported by NFHS-4 as 7.4%.
As per the report of NFHS-4 conducted in 2015-16, 38.4% children under 5 years of age are stunted indicating a reduction and information from the previous NFHS – 3 conducted in 2005-06, which reported 48% children under 5 years of age as stunted and hence there is an improvement from the previous status. As per the Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey (CNNS) conducted by Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, the rate of stunting among children has further reduced to 34.7%.
Malnutrition is a multi- faceted problem. The important determinants are inadequate food, level of poverty leading to low purchasing power, poor socio- economic status of women, female illiteracy, high rate of population growth and low access of population to health education, safe drinking water, environmental, sanitation, hygiene and other social services. Key reasons for malnutrition setting in early life are early marriage, faulty and sub-optimal infant and young child feeding practices, childhood illnesses and low birth weight. The nutritional status of the population is outcome of complex and inter-related set of factors and cannot be improved by the efforts of single sector alone. Therefore, it needs a multi-pronged approach.
The Government has accorded high priority to the issue of malnutrition and is implementing several schemes/programmes of different Ministries/Departments through States/UTs to address various aspects related to nutrition. This Ministry is implementing POSHAN Abhiyaan, Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana, Anganwadi Services and Scheme for Adolescent Girls under the Umbrella Integrated Child Development Services Scheme (ICDS) as direct targeted interventions to address the problem of malnutrition in the country. Children with Severe Acute Malnutrition are treated at the Nutrition Rehabilitation Centres established by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
Government has launched POSHAN Abhiyaan on 18.12.2017 for a three-year time frame commencing from 2017-18. The goals of POSHAN Abhiyaan are to achieve improvement in nutritional status of Children from 0-6 years, adolescent girls, pregnant women and lactating mothers in a time bound manner during the three years with fixed targets as under:
|
Sl. No. |
Objective |
Target |
|
1. |
Prevent and reduce Stunting in children (0- 6 years) |
By 6% @ 2% p.a. |
|
2. |
Prevent and reduce under-nutrition (underweight prevalence) in children (0-6 years) |
By 6% @ 2% p.a. |
|
3. |
Reduce the prevalence of anaemia among young Children(6-59 months) |
By 9% @ 3% p.a. |
|
4. |
Reduce the prevalence of anaemia among Women and Adolescent Girls in the age group of 15-49 years. |
By 9% @ 3% p.a. |
|
5. |
Reduce Low Birth Weight (LBW). |
By 6% @ 2% p.a. |
The Abhiyaan aims to reduce malnutrition in the country in a phased manner, through a life cycle approach, by adopting a synergised and result oriented approach. The Abhiyaan has mechanisms for timely service delivery and a robust monitoring as well as intervention infrastructure. The major activities undertaken under this Abhiyaan are ensuring convergence with various other programmes; Information Technology enabled Common Application Software for strengthening service delivery and interventions; Community Mobilization and Awareness Advocacy leading to Jan Andolan- to educate the people on nutritional aspects; Capacity Building of Frontline Functionaries and incentivizing States/ UTs for achieving goals.
6-Mar-2021: Scientists from Raman Research Institute (RRI) develop high-resolution platform to detect the effect of prolonged alcohol exposure on Red Blood Cells
Scientists have custom-made a platform to detect the effect of prolonged alcohol exposure on Red Blood Cells (RBC) through high-resolution measurements of their size. The high-resolution platform that shows the reduction in size of RBCs on alcohol exposure can be tuned for a point-of-care screening of multiple conditions that alter the size and count of RBCs in blood.
Although it is known that alcohol affects RBCs, the exact physiological changes are very subtle and difficult to measure. In order to overcome this challenge, scientists from Raman Research Institute (RRI), an autonomous institution funded by the Department of Science & Technology (DST), Government of India led by Professor Gautam Soni, have developed custom-made electro-fluidic platform that can detect the change by measuring the cell size in enhanced resolution.
The device made in RRI relies on the resistive pulse sensing principle. The team first developed techniques for making tiny micron (1/1000th of a millimetre) sized holes or micro-pores at the tip of a glass capillary with careful fabrication, flame polishing, and image verification. Cells passing through the pore created very tiny electrical pulses, which give direct and most sensitive information of cell count and volume. These results may also be used to explain the lack of oxygen-carrying capability of RBC under alcohol exposure leading to blurred vision, muscular in coordination, and altered mental states from alcohol abuse. This research work, recently published in ACS Sensors journal of the American Chemical Society, was carried out by researchers Saurabh Kaushik, Manohara M., and K.D Murugan under the guidance of Dr. Soni and Dr. V. Sundaramurthy from National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Bangalore.
“Our lab had been working on building nanofluidic single-molecule detectors for the last few years. We found that some of the ideas used in the nanofluidic field may also be used in microfluidics in general and cell-biology in particular. We were pleasantly surprised with the reproducibility and resolution of our devices,” said Professor Soni. Cell volume changes are an important biomarker for multiple diseases, especially blood-related conditions. Accurate measurement of volume changes of RBCs has applications in detection as well as mechanistic studies of diseases such as sickle cell anemia and malaria. Similarly, small volume changes of RBCs could also be indicators of malnutrition states in a cell. With this work, the RRI team envisages that the high-resolution platform can be tuned for a point-of-care screening of several other blood-related conditions.
20-Mar-2020: Factors effecting life expectancy and death
The report -“World Health Statistics 2019 – Monitoring Health for the SDGs” published by World Health Organization is intended to monitor progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As per the said report, globally the disparities in health, survival and longevity depends upon access to food, safe drinking water, sanitation, medical care and other basic human needs, as well as behavioural choices and societal contexts that affect the survival of individuals. According to the report, global life expectancy at birth (for both sexes combined) has increased by 5.5 years, from 66.5 in 2000years to 72.0 years in 2016. The said report can be accessed from https://www.who.int/gho/publications/world_health_statistics/2019/en/. However, there is no country-wise ranking mentioned in that report.
Ministry of Health & Family Welfare has taken various measures to provide better health services to ensure healthy life and to further improve the average life expectancy of the people in the country.
In order to mitigate the effect of increasing burden of diseases associated with increased life expectancy National Health Mission has initiated various programs like National Programme for Prevention and Control of Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular Diseases and Stroke(NPCDCS), National Programme for Control of Blindness and Visual Impairment(NPCBVI), National Mental Health Programme (NMHP),National Programme for Healthcare of Elderly(NPHCE), National Programme for the Prevention and Control of Deafness(NPPCD) etc.
The Ayushman Bharat effort, with its two components of Health and Wellness Centres (HWCs) and Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY), addresses disparity in access and reduces out of pocket expenditure for secondary and tertiary care hospitalization for 40% of India’s population. The scheme provides hospital care for about 1,350 illnesses at secondary and tertiary level empanelled public and private hospitals. HWC encourages healthy choices and behaviours including Yoga and other physical activities.
National Health Mission (NHM) is creating a network of 1,50,000 HWCs by upgrading existing Sub Centres (SCs) and Primary Health Centres (PHCs) to provide Comprehensive Primary Health Care (CPHC), which is universal and free to all those who access public health facilities. The CPHC basket of services cover 12 key service areas, which go beyond the Reproductive, Maternal, Neonatal, Child and Adolescent Health (RMNCH+A) services to include screening and care for NCDs etc.
National Health Policy, 2017 also emphasises on provision of availability of free, comprehensive primary health care services, for all aspects of reproductive, maternal, child and adolescent health and for the most prevalent communicable, non-communicable and occupational diseases in the population.
As per “World Health Statistics 2019 – Monitoring Health for the SDGs' report, the data of India, Bangladesh and Nepal in terms of Life expectancy, MMR, U5MR and Neonatal mortality rate is placed below:
|
Countries |
Life Expectancy at Birth (Both Sexes) (2016) |
Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) per 1,00,000 live births (2015) |
Under 5 Mortality Rate(U5MR) per 1,000 live births (2017) |
Neonatal Mortality Rate (NMR) per 1,000 live births (2017) |
|
Bangladesh |
72.7 |
176 |
32 |
18 |
|
Nepal |
70.2 |
258 |
34 |
21 |
|
India |
68.8 |
174 |
39 |
24 |
In order to improve the health norms in the country, the Government of India has taken the following steps:
Continuum of care is being provided to all elderly citizen of age above 60 years from preventive and promotive up to rehabilitation in Geriatric units of District Hospital, Community Health Centres and Primary Health Centres under National programme for Healthcare of Elderly (NPHCE).
Providing financial support in the form of untied funds, annual maintenance grants and Rogi Kalyan Samiti (RKS) funds for development of health facilities and ensuring services.
In addition, certain new initiatives have been undertaken like the Screening for Non-communicable Diseases (NCDs), Mothers Absolute Affection, Pradhan Mantri Surakshit Matritva Abhiyan, Pradhan Mantri National Dialysis Program, Mission Indradhanush, Rashtriya Swasthya Bal Karyakram (RBSK), Kayakalp, Labour room quality improvement initiative – LAQSHYA ,Surakshit Matritva Aashwasan (SUMAN) (to end all preventable maternal and neonatal deaths), National Health Mission Free Drugs and Free Diagnostics, National programme for Palliative Care (NPPC) etc.