No let-up in Tripura infant deaths: Survey

Guwahati: Infant mortality rate (IMR) has declined in 14 states and Union territories since 2005 but in Tripura, the smallest NE state, more and more infants died in birth during the same period.
The shocking revelation came to the fore in the National Family Health Survey 2015-16 (NFHS-4) report.
Union health minister JP Nadda, in a written reply in the Lok Sabha on Friday, stated that the IMR for Tripura in NFHS-3 for 2005-06 was 27 deaths per 1000 live births, which has increased to 31 deaths per 1,000 live births in NFHS-4.
The under-five mortality rate (U5MR) in the northeastern state has also increased by three points since the NFHS-3. The report of the NFHS-4 is available for 15 states and UTs currently, the ministry added.
Meghalaya, however, has witnessed a big decline in the IMR by 14 points. The IMR of 44 deaths per 1000 live births recorded in NFHS-3 dropped down drastically to 30 in NFHS-4, while Sikkim also recorded a decline of five points since the last survey.
The report of the NFHS-4 for Assam and other states have not been published yet.
Madhya Pradesh, which showed a high IMR of 69 in NFHS-3, registered a lower rate of 51 in the current survey.
The IMR in another state with higher points in 2005-06, Bihar, also showed a fall of 13 points in the 2015-16 survey.
The minister said as per RGI-SRS (2010-13), the biggest killer of infants is prematurity and low birth weight, which account for 39% of the deaths.
Again, 16.9% of the deaths are attributed to pneumonia, 9.9% to birth asphyxia and birth trauma, 7.9% to other non-communicable diseases, 6.7% to diarrhoeal diseases, 4.6% to ill-defined, 4.6% to congenital anomalies, 4.2% to infections, 2.1% to injuries, 1.7% to fever of unknown origin and 5.4% due to other causes.