3 December, 2016

Infant mortality: Karnataka cuts sorry figure

Bengaluru, Ahmedabad and Mumbai are among the districts in the country that have the highest number of registered infant deaths, according to a latest government report.

The country witnessed deaths of 1.89 lakh children, including 80,190 girls, in 2014, as per the ‘Vital Statistics of India based on Civil Registration System 2014’ report prepared by the Office of the Registrar General. The number of deaths of infant girls has marginally come down to 80,609 in 2013 while the overall figure stood at 1.87 lakh that year.

The all-India figure could rise as Jharkhand has not provided statistics on the registration of births and deaths for 2014. Officials said the report is based only on the deaths registered and there is the possibility of deaths which have not entered the government records.

“The accuracy of the vital statistics obtained through the registration system depends much on the completeness and promptness with which events are registered and the correctness of the information in the registration records,” it added.

According to the report, around 25% of the deaths go unregistered. But the level of registration of deaths has increased from 70.9% in 2013 to 74.3% in 2014, it said.

A district-wise analysis showed that Ahmedabad has the highest number of infant deaths at 4,994 followed by Mumbai (4,883), Malda (2,074), Chandi (2,054), Cuttack (1,940) and Bengaluru Urban (1,906). The whole of Delhi, which has 11 districts, has reported 8,097 infant deaths.

The highest number of infant girl deaths were reported from Mumbai (2,177) followed by Ahmedabad 1,627. Four districts of Maharashtra — Nashik (766), Pune (736), Nagpur (735) besides Mumbai — are in the top-ten districts where there are high number of infant girl deaths. Bengaluru urban district has 619 such deaths.

The report showed that the share of rural area is 31.4%, up from 31.3%, while that of urban area is 68.6% in total registered infant deaths during 2014.

“Non-registration of infant deaths in rural area is a cause (for) concern which may be due to non-reporting of infant deaths to the registrars, especially in case of domiciliary events,” it said.

Among the states, Maharashtra (21,349) has the highest number of infant deaths registered followed by Uttar Pradesh (19,642) and Karnataka (17,286).

Source: www.deccanherald.com

03.12.2016

Never stop learning because life never stops teaching