This begs a few questions: What is the paraphernalia of the health department there for? Can’t the state Government effectively intervene in any of these cases? Why is there not even one success story when crores of rupees are being pumped into the sector every year?

Experts say that the basic problem lies in handling children’s healthcare in a piecemeal fashion. “Malnutrition and resultant lack of immunity among children could be one of the reasons. But the state health machinery mainly reacts to ‘cases’. Year after year, we are failing in the disease control mechanism,” says Dr T N Dhole, microbiologist at Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences.

Dhole added that fogging and disease control activities were supposed to start before the monsoon. But even though the rains are here, the district authorities do not have their plans in place to control these diseases.

Dr Nimal Hettiaratchy, UNICEF Representative to Uttar Pradesh, said that while investment in improving the health system was important, “it also needs to be backed by improvement in community hygiene, availability of safe drinking water and improved level of nutrition which are very closely linked with maintaining a healthy state”.

“The treatment of diseases gets the lion’s share of healthcare expenditure, but the silent emergency of malnutrition is neglected. More than 50 per cent children in the state are malnourished. The chance of a malnourished child dying from a common ailment is significantly higher than that of a well-fed child,” said Hettiaratchy.

... contd.