India now has a strengthened network of primary health centres, community health centres and tertiary care super specialty hospitals along with an army of trained medical personnel to provide health care to its people. Simultaneously, more hospitals are being opened, drug prices being regulated, technology being made affordable for masses, network on communicable diseases being strengthened and efforts being made to invest more in the healthcare.

The Gross Domestic Product per capita, which indicates a country’s standard of living, has increased 21 times from the 1960 level when it was $81.3 to $1709.4 in 2016, according to World Bank estimates. The life expectancy at birth, the average number of years a person is expected to survive if existing patterns of mortality stayed the same throughout their life has increased by 65.8 percent or 27 years between 1960 when it was 41 years and 2015 at 68 years. Crude birth rate has also reduced from 37 in 1970 to 22.2 in 2012 (per 1000 population). Population stabilisation efforts have paid off with total fertility rate for the country going down to 2.3 while some states like Delhi at 1.7, Kerala at 1.8, Tamil Nadu at 1.7, Maharashtra at 1.8, West Bengal at 1.6 and Himachal Pradesh at 1.7 attaining fertility rates even lower than the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman.

The country has shown impressive progress in bringing down the infant mortality rate - the number of babies per 1000 who die before their first birthday. From 165 deaths per 1000 children in 1960, the IMR has come down to 38 deaths in 2015. A major reason for this is the country’s vaccination program. After launching its first vaccine – BCG - in 1962 as part of the national tuberculosis control program, India now has come a long way. An expanded program on immunization as part of the World Health Organisation’s initiative was launched in India in 1978 which included BCG, DPT and typhoid vaccine. Oral Polio vaccine was included in the program in 1979. In 1985, the program was converted into Universal Immunization Program (UIP) with a goal to cover all the children.

Over the years new vaccines like those against hepatitis B and Japanese encephalitis have been added. The thrust on vaccination has made India polio free. The country was removed from the endemic countries’ list on February 25, 2012 by the WHO. Vaccination has also contributed to the decline in under-five mortality rate from around 233 to around 47.7 per 1,000 live births in 2015 in last five decades, though in numbers this is huge burden - an estimated 5.9 million children died under the age of five in 2015, 45 percent of them being newborns.

Despite the progress, health sector in India still faces some challenges. For example, a large proportion of population - two-thirds of children and more than half of the women – suffer from anemia and malnutrition. High cost of care is a cause of concern which makes accessing care difficult for the poor and the weaker sections. Statistics show that even the well-to-do families reach the brink of poverty if faced with a serious illness.  This is because of low government investment in health and private sector becoming the main source of healthcare.

(Author is journalist. Views expressed in the article are his personal.)