Promotion of institutional births helped achieving 'historic' under-5 mortality rate in India: NGO

The government's initiatives to promote institutional births, scaling up newborn care at home and strengthening of immunisation services are the key initiatives credited for achieving "historic" under-five mortality rate in India, according to an NGO.

According to a new report by the United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation, under-five mortality rate in India was recorded below one million in 2017 for the first time in five years and the under-mortality rate was estimated to be same as the global average.

Dr Gagan Gupta, chief of health at the UNICEF, said India is making good progress in combatting reasons leading to infant deaths through a number of government-led initiatives.

"About 18 per cent of children born globally are from India," he added.

The main reasons behind infant deaths remain to be lack of access to water, sanitation, proper nutrition or basic health services, Gupta said.

"This is also the first time that the number of deaths under five is equal to number of births. The next step would be reducing the number of deaths," he had said.

The Under-5 Mortality Rate (U5MR) in India declined last year by 9 per cent, that is, a four points decline from 43 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2015 to 39 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2016, according to the Sample Registration System 2016 report quoted by the NGO Save the Children.

"Promotion of institutional births, scaling up new-born care at home and in health facilities, and strengthening of immunization services with particular focus on high burden geographies, are the key initiatives credited for this historical success," the NGO said in a statement.