Invest in health to secure India’s future well-being
Assured antenatal care and expanding immunisation coverage are vital aspects of the National Health Policy
India, with the world’s largest youth population, buzzes with the aspirations of the young. Nearly half (45%) of India’s population is below 20 – their future will shape India’s destiny.
The National Health Policy, launched in March 2017 aspires to ensure that everyone has access to healthcare, especially the poorest. It emphasises wellness and preventive healthcare, good quality maternal and child care, as well as comprehensive primary healthcare with two-way referrals. It aims to make healthcare affordable, through free drugs, diagnostics and emergency services and proposes to raise public health expenditure to 2.5% of the GDP by 2025, as well as to cut family health expenditure by 25%, by 2025.
The recently launched Pradhan Mantri Surakshit Matritva Abhiyan (PMSMA) is aimed at reducing maternal and infant mortality rates assured antenatal care to pregnant women with support from the private sector to supplement the government’s effort in safe pregnancies and safe deliveries.
Child health can be protected through breastfeeding, immunisation and good hygiene practices. The next step to protect a child is vaccination. Studies have shown that investing a dollar in vaccines gives $44 in return. We have already seen the benefits of controlling polio in India. To ensure all children in India have access to immunisation services, the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoHFW) launched Mission Indradhanush (MI) in 2014 – as part of the world’s largest immunisation programme – to vaccinate all unvaccinated and partially vaccinated children, thereby protecting them against 11 life threatening diseases. In addition, pregnant women are administered the tetanus vaccine and vitamin A doses, and ORS packets and zinc tablets are distributed.
The aim is to reach more than 90% full immunisation coverage among children in the country by 2020. After three phases, 2.1 crore children and 55.9 lakh pregnant women have been vaccinated. It has also strengthened the health system by enabling access to health services in remote parts of the country.
Many new vaccines have also been introduced such as the rotavirus vaccine (RVV), measles-rubella (MR) and others. The Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine (PCV) will also be introduced soon. This will be a big benefit since pneumonia is the single largest infectious cause of death in children under 5 worldwide (close to 1,000,000 deaths in 2015). India accounts for nearly 20% of global pneumonia deaths among children under the age of five.
Nothing is more precious than the life of an Indian child. Everything we can do to protect our children must be done.
CK Mishra is secretary, ministry of health and family welfare. The views expressed are personal