The Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs) are eight international development goals that were officially
established following the Millennium Summit of the United Nations in 2000,
following the adoption of the United Nations Millennium Declaration. All 189
United Nations member states and at least 23 international organizations have
agreed to achieve these goals by the year 2015. The goals are:
1.
Eradicating
extreme poverty and hunger
2. Achieving universal primary education
3. Promoting gender equality and empowering women
4. Reducing child mortality rates
5. Improving maternal health
6. Combating HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
7. Ensuring environmental sustainability
8. Developing a global partnership for development
According to WHO, India will fail to
achieve some of the most important Millennium Development
Goal (MDG) targets like reduction in maternal and child deaths, and
increase in child immunization rates by 2015. There is a major possibility that
India will miss its targets, some by a big margin. WHO admits that India has
been effectively reducing its infant and maternal mortality figures, largely due
to National Rural Health Mission (NRHM). But still the pace hasn't been
satisfactory enough, especially when it comes to infant and maternal deaths.
One of the MDG goals is to reduce
under-five mortality rate to 42 per 1,000 live births by 2015. India will reach
52 by that year missing the target by 10 percentage points. The national level
estimate of infant mortality rate is likely to be 44 against the MDG target of
27 in 2015. Some of the largest states like Madhya Pradesh (62), Odisha (61),
Uttar Pradesh (61), Assam (58), Meghalaya (55), Rajasthan (55), Chhattisgarh
(51), Bihar (48) and Haryana (48) still have IMR above the national estimates.
India is, however, expected to cover
about 89% children in the age group 12-23 months for immunization against
measles by 2015 — short of universal immunization of one-year olds against
measles by about 11 percentage points. India will reach maternal mortality rate
(MMR) of 139 per 100,000 live births by 2015, falling short by 30 percentage
points.
Goal
4: Reducing child mortality rates
Over the last few decades, good
Nutrition, healthcare and better standards to living have almost halved the
number of child deaths. In 1990, more than 12 million children died before the
age of 5, in developing countries, because of diseases such as diarrhea,
malnutrition, pneumonia, AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis. By 2012, this number
dropped to 6.6 million. Still Under-5 mortality rates are very high because of considering
that most of these deaths are due to preventable or treatable causes.
We can still reduce child mortality
by taking initiatives and strengthening the national health systems. We need to
expand our immunization programs which will further enhance growth monitoring
of children. By ensuring the survival and improved health indicators of mothers
by supporting better nutrition for the child and mother will be the first step
in this direction. The country needs to better the available infrastructure so
that enhanced reproductive health status can be achieved.
Goal
5: Improving maternal health
Out
of all the MDGs, maternal health has been the least progressive goal. Nearly
800 women all over the world die every
day due to complications during pregnancy or child birth. Among those, 99
percent of the deaths occur in developing countries. Every country's priority
should be to better the women's health status.
We can promote women health by
improving maternal nutrition and by advocating for spacing and empowering them
to choose family size. We need to educate young boys and girls on the
importance of contraception so as to reduce teenage pregnancies. This will also
help in combating the evil effects of early marriage. There is an emergence
need of ensuring trained attendants to conduct deliveries and to better the
access to emergency and comprehensive obstetric, ante-natal and post-partum
care
Goal 6: Combating
HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
99%
of people who die from AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis (TB) are living in the
developing countries. Though new cases of HIV infections are declining and the
number of people receiving antiretroviral treatment is growing, still 34
million people are living with HIV/AIDS.
For
effective prevention, care, and sustainable treatment of various diseases
various effective steps need to be taken. For HIV infections, measures like
promotion of safe sexual behavior, male circumcision, and providing treatment
for HIV prevention are the first step. To combat malaria, promotion of use of
long-lasting, insecticide-treated nets and increasing access to efficacious
anti-malaria medicines are the best bet. Improving housing conditions of TB
patients, TB screening of HIV-positive persons, and Directly Observed Treatment
Short Course (DOTS) therapy for TB needs to done.
