Full immunization drive among children aged 12-23 months records improvement from 62% to 76 % at National Level: NFHS-5

Full immunization drive among children aged 12-23 months has recorded substantial improvement from 62 per cent to 76 per cent at all-India level, according to National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) Phase II. As per findings 11out of 14 States/UTs has more than three-fourth of children aged 12-23 months with fully immunization and it is highest (90%) for Odisha.

Dr. Vinod Kumar Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog and Rajesh Bhushan,Secretary, Union Ministry of Health and FamilyWelfare, Government of India, released the Factsheets of key indicators on population, reproductive and child health, family welfare, nutrition and others for India and 14 States/UTs (clubbed under Phase-II) of the 2019-21 National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5)here today.

On comparing NFHS-4 and NFHS-5 data, the increase in full immunization coverage is observed to be expeditious in many states and UTs; More than50 per cent of Phase-II States/ UTs are sharing over 10 percentage pointsduring the short span of 4 years. This can be attributed to the flagship initiative of Mission Indradhanush launched by the government since 2015.

The States and UTs which were surveyed in the Phase-II are Arunachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, NCT of Delhi, Odisha, Puducherry, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh andUttarakhand. The findings of NFHS-5 in respect of 22 States & UTs covered in Phase-I were released in December, 2020.

The main objective of successive rounds of the NFHS is to provide reliableand comparable data relating to health and family welfare and other emerging issues. The NFHS-5 survey work has been conducted in around 6.1 lakh samplehouseholds from 707 districts (as on March, 2017); covering724,115 women and 101,839 men to provide disaggregated estimates up to districtlevel.

The all-India and State/UT level factsheet released includes information on 131 key indicators. It provides information on important indicators which arehelpful in tracking the progress of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the country. NFHS-5 includes some new focal areas, such as death registration, pre-school education,expanded domains of child immunization, components of micro-nutrients tochildren, menstrual hygiene, frequency of alcohol and tobacco use, additional components of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), expanded age ranges formeasuring hypertension and diabetes among all aged 15 years and above, whichwill give requisite input for strengthening existing programmes and evolving new strategies for policy intervention.

 The key results from India and Phase-II States/UTs NFHS-5 Factsheets areas below:

 • The Total Fertility Rates (TFR), an average number of children per womenhas further declined from 2.2 to 2.0 at the national level and all 14States/UT’s ranging from 1.4 in Chandigarh to 2.4 in Uttar Pradesh. All Phase-II States have achieved replacement level of fertility (2.1) exceptMadhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh.

• Overall Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR) has increased substantially from 54% to 67% at all-India level and in almost all Phase-II States/UTswith an exception of Punjab. Use of modern methods of contraceptives hasalso increased in almost all States/UTs.

• Unmet needs of family Planning have witnessed a significant decline from13 per cent to 9 per cent at all-India level and in most of the Phase-II States/UTs. The unmet need for spacing which remained a major issue inIndia in the past has come down to less than 10 per cent in all the States except Jharkhand (12%), Arunachal Pradesh (13%) and Uttar Pradesh(13%).

• There is an increase from 51 per cent to 58 per cent of women receiving therecommended four or more ANC visits byhealth providers at all-India level.

• Institutional births have increased substantially from 79 per cent to 89 percent at all-India Level. Institutional delivery is 100 per cent in Puducherryand Tamil Nadu and more than 90 per cent in 7 States/UTs out of 12 PhaseII States/UTs.

• Along with an increase in institutional births, there has also been asubstantial increase in C-section deliveries in many States/UTs especially inprivate health facilities.

• Child Nutrition indicators shows a slight improvement at all-India level as Stunting has declined from 38 per cent to 36 per cent, wasting from 21 per cent to 19 per cent and underweight from 36 per cent to 32 percent at allIndia level. In all phase-II States/UTs situation has improved in respect ofchild nutrition but the change is not significant as drastic changes in respectof these indicators are unlikely in short span period.

• Anaemia among children and women continues to be a cause of concern.More than half of the children and women (including pregnant women) areanemic in all the phase-II States/UTs and all-India level compared to NFHS4, in spite of substantial increase in the composition of iron folic acid (IFA)tablets by pregnant women for 180 days or more.

 • Exclusive breastfeeding to children under age 6 months has shown animprovement in all-India level from 55 percent in 2015-16 to 64 per cent in 2019-21. All the phase-II States/UTs are also showing a considerable progress.

 

The Union Health Secretarynoted that with the widening scope of household questionnaire, the data generated from NFHS will be beneficial to all line ministries, State Govts and other stakeholders. He remarked that data of NFHS-5 does not fully capture the transformative interventions of Ayushman Bharat -Pradhan Mantri Jan AarogyaYojana and Pradhan Mantri-SurakshitMatritvaAbhiyan as they were being rolled out as households were being surveyed across the country. He also observed that inter-ministerial co-ordination is required between the ministries of Women and Child Development, Food, Rural Development and Panchayat affairs to tackle nutrition deficiency and Anaemia in the population as has been shown in the survey.