Sick system
ON THE eve of World Health Day, 4 infants died hours after being inoculated against measles at government pri- mary health centres, acutely embarrassing a government anxious to fulfil its (ill-defined) objective of "Health for all by 2000 AD".
In the first incident, 9-month-old Soma and I 1-month-old Bandana and Mintu died within hours of being vaccinated on April 3 in Debograrn village, Nadia district, West Bengal. Three days later, a 9-month-old baby girl died similarly at Venkataraopet, Karimnagar district, in Andhra Pradesh. Two others were admitted in the local hospital in Karimnagar and 35 in Nadia.
Health secretary M S Dayal ordered the drug controller, R K Srivastav, to seize the mvv 22 and mvv 25 batches of vaccines from Debogram, but the investigating team from the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) "could not obtain samples of the vaccine as it had been banned in the state," said K K Dutta, director, NICD.
Kaliganj block development officer Kajal Banerjee, and the chief medical officer (hospitals), Nadia, Arup Banerjee, admitted that the staff of the health centre were not trained paramedics and that disposable syringes were not used.
Mira Shiva of the Voluntary Health Association of India says, "Most drugs in India have the instructions printed in English. This could be a problem, especially in the primary health care centres. Besides, human error could be at all levels. Eyen at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, there have been glaring errors."
India has a high infant mortality rate of 81 in 1,000 infants. In India's case, where 33 per cent of infants display low birth.weight and 68 per cent of children Deteriorating healthcare infrastructure below 5 years of age suffer from moderate to severe malnutrition, immunisation alone is no guarantee to future health.
The problem is one of sanitation: 80 per cent of rural India has access to health service, but only 12 per cent have adequate sanitation. Worse still, the 8th Plan outlay for health has dropped to 0.7 per cent from 3.3 per cent in the Ist Plan, leading to an immediate drop in the doctor:patient ratio.
Related Content
- Regional action framework for noncommunicable disease prevention and control in the Western Pacific
- Inequality and social security in the Asia-Pacific region
- Contextualizing transformation of healthcare sector in Asia-Pacific in the post-COVID-19 era
- Somalia: socks, agricultural livelihoods and food security- monitoring report, November 2021
- Measuring food safety: indicators to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
- Turn the tide: the state of the world’s water 2021