the big story

Warning: The pandemic may kill India’s poorest children

The TLDR: An urgent UNICEF report warns that 881,000 children under the age of 5—and 36,000 mothers—could die over the next 12 months in South Asia. The toll on India is likely to be the heaviest. The reason: the virus is having a domino effect that will unleash a pandemic of hunger, poverty and disease on our children. Also: they are already among the most vulnerable and malnourished in the world.

The really scary numbers

Based on a Johns Hopkins study, the UN projects that 1.2 million children across the globe could die due to the pandemic—in the next six months! As many as 6,000 kids under the age of five could die each day—and that number will increase for the first time in decades! 

The projected number of deaths for India: 300,000. Also this: An additional 120 million of South Asian children may fall into poverty within the next six months—taking the number from 240 million to 360 million during the same time period. Yes, this is the worst case scenario— which we need to work hardest to avert. 

Point to note: With 472 million children, India has the largest child population in the world. Experts say that the lockdown had a huge impact on 40 million poor children.

The pandemic effect

The report lays out the many different ways that the virus has hijacked resources, cut off access to healthcare, and “locked down” children (and their mothers) in conditions of extreme need. Here’s what’s happening in India.

Threat of hunger

• End of essential midday meals due to the shutdown of schools.
• Diversion of ASHA and anganwadi workers toward tracking the spread of the virus. They are an essential lifeline for rural children, ensuring they received basic healthcare and nutrition.
• Loss of family income due to the lockdown. The migrant worker crisis has been a calamity for their children.

Threat of malnutrition

According to the 2020 Global Nutrition Report, 37.9% of India’s children under five years suffer from stunted growth, and 20.8% are ‘wasted’. Point to note: India has 50% of the world’s wasted children. And we are among the three worst countries in terms of stunting. (Stunting refers to low height for a certain age group, while wasting refers to low body weight. Both are caused by acute food shortage.)

And this was before the pandemic—which has unleashed a severe food crisis, even as government godowns overflow with 71 million tonnes of rice and wheat.

Loss of routine healthcare

India’s allocation for healthcare is among the lowest in the world. The country has a shortage of 6,00,000 doctors—including 2,30,000 paediatricians—and 2 million nurses. But the pandemic has strained already scarce resources. Hospitals have suspended all routine care—be it immunizations, outpatient facilities or follow-up visits for tuberculosis and cancer patients. 

More importantly for kids, soon after the lockdown, many states simply stopped vaccination programs:

• Kerala cited the government order to keep children under 10 at home to suspend all vaccinations at health centres and anganwadis. 
• Rajasthan did the same, citing the safety to healthcare workers and short supply in vaccines. 
• Bihar officials ended home immunisations, saying: “There is no protective gear for community health workers. How can they be asked to continue their visits to homes without protection without risking infection?”

The quick solution to this tragedy...

Is actually quite simple. The “easiest and fairest,” according to UNICEF, is a direct and universal income transfer to the poorest Indians and directed at their children.

“An emergency Universal Child Benefit (UCB) would be an important component of this package and would ensure that the vast majority of households across South Asia can access a minimum level of income support. 

 

Analysis across five countries in South Asia indicates that a UCB costing 2% of GDP over six months would provide the recipient population with an average of between 18 and 46% of their pre-COVID expenditures, with particularly high benefits for the

poorest members of society.”

Unfortunately for India’s children, the government’s Rs 20 trillion stimulus package has no provision for any such cash transfer for the poor. And there is little evidence that it has any plans to implement an alternative strategy of its own.

The bottomline: We worry if it’s safe to send our own children back to school. The reality is that the country's children are already highly unsafe. And it isn’t the virus that’s going to kill them.

Reading List:

• The UNICEF report is a must-read.
• Associated Press reports on why the pandemic is now a ‘child’s rights crisis’.
• Also very good: This op-ed by Shiv Sena MP Priyanka Chaturvedi in Indian Express.
• NPR has more on the impact of the pandemic on mental health of children in South Asia.
• LA Times has a good report on how hospitals have shut shop for all non-Covid patients.
• The Wire lays out why the pandemic will push millions of children into child labour.