Heath Sector

• Advances in scientific knowledge and its application

  Helped slow the trend of high fertility, high mortality and led to increasingly better health for people in India
• In the Indian context, over the past century, science and technology provided the basis for the largest ever aggregate improvements in human health
• Growth of Primary Health Centres (PHCs) in India

  1. 1950-51: 725 PHCs

  2. 1999: 22,446 PHCs

  3. 2019: 30,045 PHCs (both rural and urban)
• The National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) for 2019-21 has revealed a mixed picture in terms of the health indicators in the country
• Health indicators in India


  • Reduction in Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) and Under-5 Mortality Rate
  • Increase in anaemia among women and children, which in turn will have implications on malnutrition in the future
• The life expectancy of an average Indian was 33 years in 1951 which increased to 69.66 years in 2019
• Stronger primary health care


  Essential to achieving the health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and universal health coverage
• Stronger primary health care contributes to the attainment of other goals beyond the health goal
• Control of Communicable Diseases in India

  Decline in the number of deaths from diseases like Malaria, Smallpox, Tuberculosis
• Smallpox


  India had eradicated this disease from the country since April 1977
• Polio


  India received 'Polio-free certification' from World Health Organization on 27 March 2014, with the last polio case being reported in Howrah in West Bengal on 13 January 2011
• Malaria


  At the time of independence malaria killed more than 10 lakh people every year, but it was controlled through development in science and technology and better planning, including the launch of the National Malaria Eradication Programme in 1958
• Tuberculosis (TB)


  National TB Control Programme was started in 1955, and Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme was launched in April 1977. National Strategic Plan for Tuberculosis Elimination (2017–2025) purposes to achieve a rapid decline in the burden of TB, morbidity and mortality while working towards the elimination of TB in India by 2025
• Provision of a unique health ID for every individual

  Benefits of tracking patient case history, diagnostic tests taken and their reports, interval between tests, etc., all of which is irretrievable in a pen-and-paper system and lack of awareness/knowledge among patients