400 infants die in Bihar every day

Patna, Oct 24(UNI) On an average more than 400 infants below the age of one year die in Bihar on any given day while nearly two thirds of infant deaths occur in the first month of the child's birth.

A survey conducted by UNICEF revealed that timely intervention can help save thousands of lives thus reduce the child mortality rate which is a major component of National Rural Health Mission.

Every year 1,58,000 children below one year of age face preamature deaths in Bihar with a population of 82.9 million, the survey said.

"A number of reasons-particularly nutritional status of women, breastfeeding practices, health and hygiene practices, malnutrition, lack ofservices and professional advice and treatment at the village level are cited by experts as some of the contributing factors for infant deaths," a UNICEF release here said.

With a view to achieve the objective of reducing infant mortality rate a unique strategy had been evolved in partnership with Bihar Government providing for training of health and anganwadi professionals on counselling mothers about correct health and child care practices identifying early signs of distress, said UNICEF state representative Bijaya Rajbhandari.

The strategy styled Integrated Management of Neonatal and Childhood Illness had now been extended to five more districts-Gaya, Bhagalpur, Muzaffarpur, Patna and Darbhanga, after successful experiment in Vaishali where it was introduced 10 months ago, Mr Rajbhandari added.

He expressed the hope that the initiative would halp save the lives of 20,000 new born babies in the five districts each year.

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