E-Paper
‘11,066 kids, infants diedin Maharashtra in nine months’
A total of 11,066 infant and child mortality cases were registered in the state from April 1 to December 31, 2019, the government informed the legislative Assembly
A total of 11,066 infant and child mortality cases were registered in the state from April 1 to December 31, 2019, the government informed the legislative Assembly on Friday. The cases of neo-natal deaths during the period were 12,147.
The cases of infant (under one year of age) and child (one to five years) mortality in the previous year, between April 1, 2018 and March 31, 2019, were 13,070. Of them 1,402 were from Mumbai city.
Public health minister Rajesh Tope, in a written reply in the legislative Assembly on Friday, said 1,070 cases of maternal mortality too were registered in the state between April 1, 2019 and January 15, 2020.
In the reply, the minister said high blood pressure, heavy bleeding during delivery, infection and loss of blood were the reasons behind it.
The government also admitted that 74,628 children in the state were found with severe acute malnutrition and 1,95,044 children with moderate malnutrition, according to an app-based survey submitted in December 2019. “Despite the measures undertaken by the state health department, the rate of malnutrition is on the rise. In rural part of Thane districts, 327 and 1,736 children were diagnosed with severe acute malnutrition and moderate malnutrition, respectively,” Tope said. The minister said that infection, pre-mature delivery, pneumonia, respiratory distress syndrome are some of the reasons for deaths of newborn children. The minister, in his reply has stated that, in 2018-19, 1,64,153 newborn babies were found underweight (below 2.5kg). Of them, 16,025 babies born underweight were from Mumbai.
