Date: Nov 12, 2018

In India, nearly one million children still die before their fifth birthday. Close to 300,000 of those deaths are caused by pneumonia and diarrhea. Many of these deaths are preventable through simple, effective interventions such as immunisation, breastfeeding, handwashing, and access to appropriate treatment. India follows the World Health Organisation and Unicef’s “protect, prevent, treat” framework to deliver interventions against these two diseases through a coordinated and community-based approach. Despite these efforts, infectious diseases remain a significant proportion of child mortality in India. New challenges have also arisen, including increasing costs and circulation of misinformation on social media.

The event brings together leading experts and stakeholders to discuss India’s burden of infectious disease among children and strategies to overcome emerging barriers to achieving universal access to life-saving interventions against pneumonia and diarrhea.

Objectives of the event include:

  • Review India’s progress in reducing disease burden and increasing coverage of key interventions to further accelerate progress on under 5 deaths, especially preventing pneumonia and diarrhea.
  • Discuss emerging challenges to delivery of key interventions, including need to ensure optimum financing for health services and circulation of misinformation on social media.
  • Propose strategies to overcome barriers to ensure that every child has access to key preventative and therapeutic interventions and health promotion services.

Speakers

Amir Ullah Khan, Health Economist and Professor, Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad

Mathuram Santosham, Professor, Departments of International Health and Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins University

Narendra Kumar Arora, Executive Director, International Clinical Epidemiology Network (INCLEN)

Sanchita Sharma, Editor (Health), The Hindustan Times

V.K. Paul, Member, NITI Aayog

See the agenda here.


The timing of this event is from 2:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.


Participation at this event is by invitation only.  Those interested can contact Falak Raza ([email protected])

Venue Address

Magnolia Hall, India Habitat Centre