Life expectancy up by 50 pc since 1960, says report
Fri Sep 03 2010, 02:22 hrs, New Delhi:
Life expectancy in India has increased by nearly 50 per cent since 1960, says India Health Report 2010 by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Indicus Analytics.
“This increase is substantially better than sub-Saharan Africa. However, India’s much poorer neighbour, Bangladesh, has clearly made substantially more impressive gains than India in the past two decades,” notes the report, released by Minister of State for Health Dinesh Trivedi on Thursday.
As for Infant Mortality Rate (IMR), it is seen that “India has made great strides in improving its IMR over the last decade (reaching about 54 per 1,000 live births in 2007)”. However, “although India’s record is impressive in comparison to sub-Saharan Africa, it is substantially lower than that of other regions. India’s performance is not only substantially inferior to countries such as China, but it has also been outperformed by Bangladesh”.
Figures reveal an increase in Life Expectancy at Birth (LEB) in all Indian states from 1970 to 2006. “However, data also reveal that all-India averages hide significant inter-state variations in LEB. In general, states in south India (especially Kerala), and Maharashtra, Haryana and Punjab have a much higher life expectancy while Orissa, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh — the OBIMARU states — fall below the all-India average,” says the report.
The group of states with above average life expectancy are also the ones with much lower than average IMR. At the other extreme, and with the exception of Bihar, OBIMARU states have a high IMR with levels similar to those in sub-Saharan African countries.
The report reveals that 36 per cent of women in the reproductive age group in India are undernourished. “The OBIMARU states continue to lag in respect of undernutrition among women,” it adds. In terms of undernutrition, India’s performance is no better than the countries in Africa and some of its neighbours such as Bangladesh and Pakistan, and it is substantially below that of countries in Latin America, China and the Philippines. India remains home to one-third of the world’s undernourished children.
There are critical gaps in infrastructure, especially with respect to the presence of healthcare centres and well-trained staff, states the report. However, the contribution of the private sector in terms of availability of hospital beds has gradually increased from about 28 per cent in 1973 to about 61 per cent in 1996. It is estimated to have reached about 78 per cent in 2009.
(Indian Express)
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