Govt to push for zero child deaths due to diarrhoea

Aditi Tandon
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, June 12

The government is planning a fresh strategy to achieve zero child deaths due to diarrhoea by 2022.

The current burden of diarrhoea-related child deaths in India is over one lakh a year. This is next only to pneumonia, the largest child killer in India.

Of the under-five mortality of around 12 lakh a year, pneumonia makes up about 1.7 lakh and diarrhoea about one lakh.

Health Minister Harsh Vardhan today flagged the burden of diarrhoea deaths of children as a matter of grave concern at a review meeting on maternal and child health with ministry officials. He said no child should ever die of diarrhoea.

“The government will make immediate and sustained efforts to prevent and end diarrhoea-related child deaths by 2022,” Vardhan noted. He added that the ministry will re-strategise its approach and aggressively pursue the target of zero diarrhoea deaths by 2022.

The key, he said, was to devise innovative strategies and encourage new ideas and innovations to reach the un-reached children.

India had in 2016 introduced the rota virus vaccine in the national child immunization plan to address childhood diarrhoea deaths which are preventable with vaccination.