Summary:
DEHRADUN: According to a study published in medical journal ‘The Lancet’ on August 29, India has the maximum number of children —around 1.15 crore — who have development disabilities. The study which surveyed 195 countries and six development disabilities autism spectrum disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) — found that India had maximum number of cases of the first five disabilities while ADHD was prevalent the most among children in China where 40.36 lakh children with development disabilities were recorded. Nigeria (24.58 lakh), Pakistan (18.48 lakh), Indonesia (17.07 lakh) and Ethiopia (13.20 lakh) are the other countries besides India and China who have a large number of their child population afflicted with these disabilities, as per the study.The study which was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation further says that India also has the highest cases of YLDs (Years Lived With Disabilities), that is instances of children living for long periods with disabilities. The only silver lining is that India has seen a marginal decline in overall cases — from 1.20 crore in 1990 to 1.15 crore in 2016 and the YLD per one lakh population has also come down from 760 in 1990 to 739 in 2016.The study, helmed by a number of researches under the aegis of the Global Research on Developmental Disabilities Collaborators, identified India, China, Nigeria, Pakistan, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Egypt, Congo, Bangladesh and Tanzania as the top ten countries of the world that have the maximum burden of developmental disability on them, that is over 50%.“Overall, the global burden of developmental disabilities has decreased a bit, from 52.9 million (8.4%) in 1990 to 53 million (8.9%) in 2016. However, this is not a significant improvement,” the authors of the study said.They added that “this marginal change is in sharp contrast with the trend in under-5 mortality, which substantially declined from 11 million in 1990 to 5 million in 2016.” “The increasing burden reflects the absence of any systematic global initiative to curtail this burden among the increasing number of children who are surviving the first five years of life.”The authors called for a need for ‘urgent action’ in order to address the situation, “Identification of the major causes, as well as the effect of developmental disabilities should be an urgent priority in regions with the largest prevalence,” they said..