3 infants die every 2 mins in India: UN

Three infants die every two minutes on an average in India due to lack of access to water, sanitation, proper nutrition or basic health services, according to a report by the United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation.

About 8,02,000 infant deaths were reported in India in 2017, the lowest in five years, but the infant death numbers still remained the highest in the world, followed by China at 3,30,000.

Dr Gagan Gupta, Chief of Health at the World Health Organization, however, said India is making good progress in tackling the causes leading to infant deaths through a number of government-led initiatives.

"It has to be taken into consideration that India has a birth rate of 25 million every year and the number of infant deaths have come down and is lowest in five years. This is also the first time that the number of deaths under five is equal to number of births. The next step would be reducing the number of deaths," he said.

The main reasons behind infant deaths remain to be lack of access to water, sanitation, proper nutrition or basic health services, Gupta said.