‘Country facing double burden of maternal & infant deaths along with rise in NCDs’

"We are facing a double burden of maternal and infant deaths along with a rise in non-communicable diseases (NCDs) like ischaemic heart disease, diabetes and cancer," said Prof Fauzdar Ram, Director of Indian Institute of Population Sciences, who is in the city to attend a conference on population and health.

Ram, also the president of Indian Association for the Study of Population that is conducting the three-day conference at Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, said there was a need to think slightly differently from the global perspective.

According to the Global Burden of Disease-2010 report published in medical journal The Lancet — the number of deaths from communicable, maternal, neonatal and nutritional causes decreased by around 17 per cent between 1990 and 2010 ( from 15.9 million deaths in 1990 to 13.2 million deaths in 2010).

This change was driven by a reduction in the number of deaths caused by diarrhoeal disease (from 2.5 to 1.4 million), lower respiratory tract infections (from 3.4 to 2.8 million), neonatal condition such as preterm birth complications (from 3.1 to 2.2 million) as well as decline in measles and tetanus deaths, the report said.

On the flip side, though the number of deaths due to non-communicable diseases (cancer, diabetes and heart diseases) accounted for nearly two out of every three deaths worldwide in 2010 compared to around one in two of all deaths in 1990.

Ram said the global shift is now towards NCD's but India is still to find a solution to the problem of maternal and infant mortality. The Infant mortality rate (IMR) and maternal mortality rate (MMR) may have declined but there are states like UP, Rajasthan and MP which are still worrisome, he said.

For instance in Rajasthan, the state has a tough job as it requires to reduce the MMR from 318 per lakh live births to 150 and IMR from 55 per 1000 live births to 25 per 1000 births by 2015.

... contd.

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