Sanitation most relevant for India's health parameters: Bill Gates

Sanitation is the most relevant aspect of improving India's reproductive, maternal and newborn health, according to Bill and Melinda Gates.

In their annual letter about the work of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the philanthropist couple has said the lives of people in poor countries will improve faster in next 15 years than at any other time in the history.

In their letter, the couple has shared their thoughts about the progress towards the foundation's goals and the challenges that remain, a release said here Thursday.

This year the co-chairs' of the foundation bet on maternal and child health and sanitation as most relevant with respect to India's goal of improving reproductive, maternal, newborn child and adolescent health under the goals of the National Rural Health Mission.

They are aligned on the fact that technological innovations are necessary to overcome the problems that India faces today, whether it is sanitation or financial services for the poor.

They expressed happiness over the fact that new vaccine introduction is becoming a reality in India with the expected introduction of Rotavac, first indigenously developed vaccine related to severe rotavirus diarrhoea in low-resource settings in India, by January-end.

The noted philanthropists said in 1990, one in 10 children in the world died before the age of five years. "Today, it's one in 20. By 2030, it will be one in 40."

"Almost all countries will include vaccines for diarrhoea and pneumonia, two of the biggest killers of children, in their immunisation programmes. Better sanitation will cut the spread of disease dramatically," the letter said.

It further said that at present, some 2.5 billion people don't have access to cheap and easy financial services -- a problem that makes it much more difficult to be poor.

"Beyond 2015, we hope these global citizens will hold governments and other decision-makers accountable for meeting those goals," it said.