“Maternal and child health indicate the robustness of our health sector”

Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Ghulam Nabi Azad on Thursday accorded due appreciation to the fact that the country’s under-five mortality rate has declined much faster than the global average, but agreed that the challenge was to bring down neonatal mortality. Speaking at the inauguration of a national summit ‘Call to Action — Child Survival and Development,’ Mr. Azad noted with pride that there was a quantum jump in the annual rate of decline in the recent past. Also, the decline in child deaths in rural areas and in the States with weak health indicators was both sharp and steady.