AP struggles with underweight kids, infant, maternal deaths

Amaravati: Andhra Pradesh is facing one of the major challenges of severely underweight children, infant deaths and maternal deaths which are contrary to the state government’s vision of building a healthy society.

Other than the common national health programmes, the state government has designed several initiatives on its own to address the health concerns.

Though the government is making special efforts to reduce the infant mortality rate (IMR) and maternal mortality rate (MMR) by introducing several initiatives such as Talli-Bidda express scheme, child and mother care kits and cash benefits to the women coming to the hospitals for deliveries, the reduction in MMR and IMR rate is not at expected level.

According to fresh data of Andhra Pradesh health and medical and family welfare department, the maternal deaths increased from 584 in 2016-17 to 653 in 2017-18. Similarly, the infant deaths rose to 8,761 in 2017-18 from 6,966 in 2016-17.

According to NITI Aayog, the maternal mortality rate stands at 90 per 1 lakh live births and the infant mortality rate stands at 34 per 1,000 live births in Andhra Pradesh for 2016-17.

On other hand, the malnutrition has also emerged a major problem in the state. As many as 56,600 Anganwadi centres are functioning across the state in which various nutritional programmes such as Anna Amruthahastam’ and Giri Gorumuddalu are been implementing for both the mother and child to fight the malnutrition and anaemia.

But, of the total 23.8 lakh children in the state, the percentage of severely stunted (too short for age) children is 36.54, severely wasted (low weight for height) children are 7.49 per cent and severely underweight children is 11.24 per cent under age of 5 years. According to officials, more than one out of three children are stunted (8.7 lakh) and the highest percentage of stunted children are in Kurnool (45.2 per cent).

Similarly, more than 1.78 lakh wasted children are in the state and the highest are in Chittoor (19,700 children) which is around 10 per cent of the total wasted children. It is also found that 2.70 lakh children are found as underweight and the highest percentage in Kurnool with 20 per cent.

The obese children problem is also high in the state. It is found that 3.50 lakh children are obese in the state. However, the situation is worse in 30 ST mandals where the tribal population is very high. Of the 1.12 lakh total children in those mandals, 46,000 are stunted, 17,000 underweight, 8,500 wasted and 14,000 are obese.

In Kurnool district, where the ST population is high, 1.24 lakh are stunted, more than 56,600 are underweight, 26,500 are obese and 21,800 are wasted out of total 2.75 lakh children in the district.

In view of these conditions, the state government has decided to lay special focus on these issues and the Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu directed the women and child welfare department and district administrations to take this as challenge and strive to make the state as malnutrition-free state within a year.

By K Varaprasada Rao