The Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, Dr. Bharti Pravin Pawar today virtually inaugurated the release of the Southern zone Family Health Survey-5 (2019-21) Report.  Speaking on the occasion, she said the findings of the survey highlight significant fall in infant and child mortality rates, unmet need for family planning, out-of-pocket expenditure on child birth in public health facilities, malnutrition among children. Pointing out that it is a positive step towards the goal of “Health for All”, she said it is evident from the findings of the NFHS-5 that the health and family welfare scenario in the country is moving in the right direction at the right pace and hoped that the country would be able to achieve many of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) targets well before 2030. The Minister of State also said in some indicators and Services,  the southern zonal States/UTs have already achieved almost 100 percent or universal, like in Birth Registration of Children, population living in household with electricity, Institutional Birth, Birth attended by skilled health personnel, and many more indicators.
As per the Survey report, early marriage has declined in all the South Zonal States/UTs with lowest in Lakshadweep (01%) followed by Kerala (06%). Institutional births in the country have increased significantly from 79 % in the last survey to 89 % now. In NFHS-5, more than 77% of children aged 12-23 months are fully immunized, with overall improvement in SDG indicators in all states / UTs. The NFHS-5 data were collected from approximately 1.12 lakh households in the southern zone of 1.12 lakh females and 15,000 males. 
At the same time, the National Family Health Survey shows that obesity is on the rise in most states. Nationally, it has increased from 21 per cent to 24 per cent among women and from 19 to 23 per cent among men. More than one-third of women aged 34-46 in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Sikkim, Manipur, Punjab, Delhi, Chandigarh, Puducherry, Lakshadweep and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands are overweight.
The function in 
Thiruvananthapuram was presided over by  Kerala Health Minister Smt. Veena George.  She said the government aims to provide better health care to the people at a lower cost and this goal can be achieved through the ARDRAM mission. 
Experts from the International Institute for Population Science presented the findings and relevance, maternal and child health and nutrition, family planning and adolescent health of the National Health Survey-5.  Health experts gave a presentation on the role of Panchayat raj institutions in the field of health and the best health models in the southern states.

-ND-

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