New Delhi:

A study published in the “Nature” magazine this year has revealed that the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) has contributed significantly in reducing infant and under-five mortality rates across the country by saving 60,000 to 70,000 infant lives annually, Union Health Minister J P Nadda informed Parliament on Friday.

According to the Sample Registration System (SRS) report of the Registrar General of India, the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) in Andhra Pradesh reduced from 39 per 1,000 live births in 2014 to 24 per 1,000 live births in 2020 and the IMR in Telangana reduced from 35 per 1,000 live births to 21 per 1,000 live births in the said period, Nadda said in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha.

The Union health ministry supports all states and Union territories in the implementation of the Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child, Adolescent Health and Nutrition strategy under the National Health Mission (NHM), based on the Annual Programme Implementation Plan (APIP) to improve child survival in the country, he added.

These interventions include the promotion of institutional deliveries through cash incentives under the Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY), entitlements under the Janani Shishu Suraksha Karyakaram (JSSK), establishment of neonatal intensive care units (NICUs), special newborn care units (SNCUs) and newborn stabilisation units (NBSUs) to take care of sick and small babies and Home-Based Care of Young Child provided by ASHAs to improve child-rearing practices, the minister said.

The interventions also include the Mothers’ Absolute Affection (MAA) programme to promote early initiation and exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months, promoting the use of ORS and zinc for the management of diarrhoea in children, early screening, identification and management on pneumonia under Social Awareness and Actions to Neutralise Pneumonia Successfully (SAANS) and strengthening paediatric care for the management of sick children at the district hospital level.

Also, the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK) provides child-health screening and early-intervention services for defects, diseases, deficiencies and delays to improve the quality of survival, Nadda said.

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Researchers have developed an India-specific artificial intelligence model to precisely determine the gestational age of a foetus in the second and third trimester of pregnancy. 

The model has been designed by researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras and the Translational Health Science and Technology Institute, Faridabad.  

It is part of an interdisciplinary group for advanced research on birth outcomes — the DBT India initiative (GARBH-Ini) programme. The Garbhini-GA2 is the first late-trimester GA estimation model to be developed and validated using Indian population data. Currently, models used for the Western population are in use which could prove erroneous when applied in the later part of pregnancy due to variations in the growth of the foetus in the Indian population, the researchers say.  

The Garbhini-GA2 accurately estimates the foetus’ age, reducing error by almost three times.  

Appropriate care

The Indian data would help to provide appropriate care for pregnant women and determine the precise date of birth, thus reducing maternal and infant mortality rates.  

Secretary, Department of Biotechnology, Rajesh Gokhale said GARB-Ini, the department’s flagship programme, was being validated across the country.  

Several investigators, including Himanshu Sinha, associate professor, Bhupat and Jyoti Mehta School of Biosciences, Department of Biotechnology, IIT Madras, Shinjini Bhatnagar, principal investigator of the programme and a distinguished professor at THSTI, were involved in the project. 

The findings were published in the peer-reviewed Lancet Regional Health Southeast Asia. 

Mr. Sinha said advanced data science and AI/ML techniques were used to build tools to predict unfavourable birth outcomes and the first step is to develop accurate GA models that perform significantly better than currently used models designed using western populations.  

End-to-end partnership

Ms. Bhatnagar said the application of sophisticated data science tools was not sufficient. Ensuring that technological advancements yield tangible benefits in the clinical realm lies in the end-to-end partnership between clinicians and data scientists. “Such collaboration ensures that the development of solutions is not only technically sound but also clinically relevant and seamlessly integrated into healthcare workflows,” she said. 

The study was conducted in partnership with Gurugram Civil Hospital, Gurugram, Safdarjung Hospital, New Delhi, Christian Medical College, Vellore and Pondicherry Institute of Medical Sciences, Puducherry.  

Additional funding for the project came from the Robert Bosch Centre for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence and the Centre for Integrative Biology and Systems Medicine at IIT Madras.