India recorded highest number of under-5 deaths in the world: Lancet Study

New Delhi: India has recorded the highest number of deaths of children under the age of five in 2015, according to a latest Lancet study which also said that the country performed poorly in terms of tuberculosis and maternal survival.

The Global Burden of Disease study 2015 published in the Lancet which assesses the state of world’s health, said over a million under-five children have died in 2015.

The study said that cardiovascular diseases account for a large and increasing proportion of deaths in India.

“Most countries in the region did better than expected at reducing health loss from strokes (like India, Pakistan) and lower respiratory infections (like Bangladesh, Nepal).

“India performed much worse than expected on tuberculosis, whilst Bangladesh did poorly on drowning. All countries in the region did much worse than expected at reducing deaths in children under-5, with India recording the largest number of under-5 deaths of any country in 2015, at 1.3 million,” it said.

The study said that while Bangladesh has improved maternal survival much faster than expected, India and Nepal have fared poorly.

“In this analysis we have estimated that there were more deaths due to chronic kidney disease than in previous analysis because of improved estimates within countries with large populations such as China, India, and Russia,” it said.

The study found that although life expectancy has risen but seven out of 10 deaths now occur due to non-communicable diseases while headaches, tooth cavities and hearing and vision loss each affect more than 1 in 10 people across the world.

It said that progress has been made on reducing unsafe water and sanitation, but diet, obesity, and drug use are an increasing threat. It also said that more than 2,75,000 women died during pregnancy or childbirth in 2015 across the world.