With one-fifth of the world’s newborn deaths occurring in India, the so-called economic prosperity is rendered meaningless, says a new report by Save the Children, an international NGO. What’s worse is that poorer countries like Peru, Bangladesh and Nepal are faring much better than India as far as neo-natal mortality is concerned, revealed a survey carried out in 14 countries by the NGO.

According to the report, over four lakh newborns die within the first 24 hours every year in India — the highest anywhere in the world. India also has the highest under-five mortality with over 2 million children dying before their fifth birthday — that’s one death every 15 seconds. About 90 per cent of these deaths could be easily prevented, says the NGO.

“If people understood how affordable and feasible it is to prevent children dying, they’d be shocked. There is no real pressure on the government to act largely because of public perceptions that it is too costly to change the reality. But the public is right on this point: we can prevent children dying needlessly. And our campaign is urging everyone to say change is possible so that there can be no excuse for the government not to act,” said Thomas Chandy, CEO, Save the Children.

Despite rapid economic growth, India’s record on child mortality, at 72 per 1000 live births, is worse than that of neighbouring countries such as Bangladesh. In 2000, India vowed to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) of reducing under-five mortality rate by two-thirds by 2015. While the report suggests that India will not meet this goal until 2020, the Health Ministry maintained that it was not impossible.

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