With around 1.4 lakh children dying due to diarrhoea annually in the country, Health Ministry today launched an awareness campaign 'Intensified Diarrhoea Control Fortnight' (IDCF) to be observed from July 27 to August 8 with the aim of zero child deaths due to childhood diarrhoea.
Government has also planned to include Rotavirus in its Universal Immunisation Programme that covers about 13.5 crore children for vaccination against seven vaccine preventable diseases, through 90 lakh immunisation sessions each year, Additional Secretary Health, C K Mishra said.
Government also launched a mobile application for internal programme managers to monitor the data coming from the whole country under the campaign.
Development partner UNICEF said childhood diahhroea is associated with lack of nutrition, poor hygiene and healthcare, poor access to clean water and sanitation.
"Diarrhoea contributes to 10.4 per cent of under-five deaths in India. Children living in slums are at high risk. Improvement in coverage of essential interventions like early initiative of breast feeding, appropriate complimentary feeding, hand washing, safe drinking water and sanitation treatment with ORS and zinc solutions can avert almost all deaths," UNICEF Country Representative LG Arsenault said.
The IDCF will focus on improving awareness on use of ORS and zinc in childhood diarrhoea and promotion of optimal infant and children-feeding practices in order to achieve the ultimate goal of zero childhood diarrhoea deaths.
Distribution of ORS packets to households with under-five-year-old children, establishing of ORS-Zinc corners and promoting prescription of ORS and Zinc dispersible tablets will be done during the first week of the campaign.
The second week will be observed as Infant and Young Child Feeding Week with activities like home visit by ASHA workers for detection of undernourished children, counselling on breastfeeding for mothers and referral and medical management of severe acute malnourished children.
