Iron will: Haryana stands 2nd in country’s anaemia fight

For decades, the prevalence of anaemia had been a huge problem for Haryana. The state, however, recorded massive improvement in this regard in the first quarter of the year.

As per the latest reports of the National Health Mission (NHM), in the first quarter of this year, Haryana stood second in the country in eradicating anaemia.

According to the report, released as part of the Anaemia Mukt Bharat project, Andhra Pradesh led the list. It stood third last year.

Haryana climbed from the eighth spot to the second, while Telangana jumped from the sixth position to the third.

As part of the campaign, the targeted population is divided into different age groups: children (six-59 months); children (five-nine years); adolescents (10-19 years); and pregnant or lactating women or those of reproductive age.

As per the report, Haryana managed to cater to 77 per cent of children aged up to 59 months; and 95 per cent of children aged between five and nine years.

The state also covered 95 per cent of persons in the ‘adolescents’ category, and 93 per cent of

pregnant women.

It, however, managed to only cater to 65.9 per cent of lactating mothers

this quarter.

Andhra Pradesh, on the other hand, covered 77.8 per cent of this target group.

As a result, while Andhra Pradesh scored 88.0 points on the AMB index, Haryana stood at 85.2.

“We managed to implement the ‘6x6x6’ approach extensively, which improved our performance. We targeted six age groups with six interventions through six institutional mechanisms. Key steps include prophylactic iron-folic acid (IFA) supplementation for beneficiaries; food fortification with iron; screening and treatment of anaemia in communities and schools; addressing non-nutritional causes such as malaria and fluorosis; and leveraging an IT platform for beneficiary tracking and data analysis under ATAL (Assuring Total Anaemia Limit) Abhiyan. We understand that covering lactating mothers is challenge that needs to be addressed. We are working on initiatives to overcome this challenge, and make Haryana hundred per cent anaemia free,” said Haryana NHM Director Dr Virender Yadav.