India has the highest number of children under five years of age who don’t receive proper health care. The annual “state of the world’s mothers” report pegs the figure at 67 million, which adds up to 53 per cent of the total population of under-five children in the country.

The report has been compiled by “Save the Children”, a US-based global independent humanitarian organisation. Nigeria comes second in the list, with 16 million children (66 per cent) falling under this category.

“Over one million deaths of children occur in their first month in India,” says the report, blaming this on non-availability of medical facilities.

The report adds that Indian girls are 61 per cent more likely to die between the ages of one and five years. “This means that for every five boys who die, eight are girls. The survival gap between girls and boys in India has widened,” it says, adding, “in Punjab, expenditure on health care during the first two years of life was 2.3 times greater for sons than for daughters.”

Globally, more than 200 million children under five years of age do not get basic health care. According to the report, about 10 million children die every year from easily preventable diseases, and about six million of these could be saved with basic services like immunisation, antibiotics, skilled care at childbirth and timely treatment for diarrhoea and pneumonia.

The report also includes the first-ever “Basic Health Care Report Card” of 55 developing countries. In India, the poorest children are three times more likely to die than the richest children. Other countries in this category include Azerbaijan, Brazil, Bolivia, Cambodia, Egypt, Indonesia, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa and the Philippines.

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