The ‘Dastak Abhiyan’ – aimed to detect diseases in early childhood – was launched at the state-run JP Hospital on Monday. The campaign will continue till August 18. Chief Medical and Health Officer (CMHO) Dr Prabhakar Tiwari said that by providing health and nutrition services to children below 5 years, the expected mortality rate in children can be brought down. He said that the mortality rate can be reduced to 22 per cent by breastfeeding children less than six months of age and by providing nutritious food to children. Giving Vitamin A supplements can reduce child mortality by 20 per cent, malnutrition by 45 per cent and anemia control by 20 per cent, he added. Under this campaign, a joint team of Health Department, Women and Child Development, ANM, ASHA and Anganwadi workers will visit families with children up to 5 years to identify the disease often found in children. Dastak Abhiyan aims at community level proactive identification of major childhood diseases in children below 5 years of age to bring desired reduction in child mortality.

 

Notably, an intensive diarrheal disease control campaign is also set to be organised by IDCF. This will be held from July 19 to August 18 along with the activities of Dastak Abhiyan. The deficiency of micronutrients leads to decrease in immunity, due to which children become malnourished. For the Vitamin A supplementation of children in the age group of 9 months to 5 years, team members will visit door-to-door at communal level and reporting will be done in Dastak monitoring tool. ORS and zinc tablets will also be distributed. During the visit if a child has symptoms of Covid-19, the child concerned will be referred for examination to the Covid-center. On this occasion, Dr Upendra Dubey, Dr Smita Saxena, Dr Piyush Pancharatna and Dr Satish Maravi were present along with other officials.