New Delhi: The Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare, JP Nadda, inaugurated the ‘Stop Diarrhoea Campaign 2024’ in Delhi on Monday.
During the event, the Union Minister announced that the campaign would last two months. The objective of the STOP Diarrhoea Campaign 2024 is to eliminate child fatalities caused by diarrhoea.
“This is the first program that we are launching after coming to power. In 2014 we started ‘Mission Indradhanush’ and in 2024 we are scaling up the duration of the campaign from a fortnight to two months,” Nadda said.
“In 2014, the mortality rate was 45 per 1000 live births which has been reduced to 32 per 1000 live births,” he added.
According to a Health Ministry release, this year Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has renamed Diarrhoea Campaign as ‘STOP Diarrhoea Campaign’, in continuation of the efforts of Diarrhoea Management till 2023. The campaign’s 2024 slogan is, “Diarrhoea ki Roktham, Safai aur ORS se rakhen apna dhyaan”
The STOP Diarrhoea Campaign is a collection of intensified activities to be carried out during a designated period to prevent and control deaths from dehydration due to diarrhoea in all States/UTs. These activities primarily include the intensification of advocacy and awareness campaigns for diarrhoea management through the collaboration of various departments, enhancing service delivery for diarrhoea case management, setting up ORS-Zinc corners, ensuring ASHA workers preposition ORS and Zinc in households with children under five, and promoting hygiene and sanitation awareness, as mentioned in the release.
The release further noted that reducing childhood mortality to 23 per 1,000 live births by 2025 is a key objective of the National Health Policy, given that diarrhoeal diseases remain a leading cause of death among children under five in many states, accounting for 5.8 percent of such deaths nationwide.
Notably, diarrhoea claims the lives of approximately 50,000 children in the country. These deaths are predominantly concentrated in the summer and monsoon seasons, disproportionately affecting children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.
