Guwahati - Assam's Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR), which was the highest in the country till last year, has drastically reduced, state Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said Sunday.
An increase in institutional child deliveries in the state has led to this, he said.
"In Assam, the institutional deliveries have gone up. This led to decrease in the rate of MMR. In 2006, there were only 66,000 institutional deliveries in Assam while we have recorded 420,000 institutional deliveries in the state last year," Sarma said.
He said he expected that the state would register about 470,000 institutional delivery till March 2012.
Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) and MMR had continued to worry the state government till last year despite the achievements made under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM). While the IMR was 58 per 1,000, the MMR in Assam was over 400 per 100,000 live births - the highest in the country, where the national average was 250 last year.
The new MMR rate will only be known in March, but is estimated to be much lower.
Alarmed by the high IMR and MMR last year, the central government had written to the state health department to take effective steps as well as to conduct a proper study to trace the real causes for the high MMR in the state.
The development comes as union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad is in the state to review the performance of the NRHM. The union minister is likely to inaugurate a health scheme here Monday.
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