Read the given passage carefully and answer the following questions. Certain parts have been highlighted to help answer the questions It is overwhelmi...
Question
Read the given passage carefully and answer the following questions. Certain parts
have been highlighted to help answer the questions
It is overwhelming for parents to be told that their child may have heart defects. It is worse when the child
does not get treated in time due to lack of paediatric cardiac care in the vicinity of his/her home. Congenital
Heart Disease (CHD) , which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) , Atlanta, U.S.,
acknowledges to be the most common congenital disorder, is responsible for 28% of all congenital birth
defects, and accounts for 6%-10 % of all the infant deaths in India. Paediatricians say timely medical
intervention can save 75% of these children and give them normal lives. The lack of a national policy for
the treatment of cardiovascular diseases in children keeps a huge number outside the ambit of treatment.
It is estimated that over 1,00,000 children keep getting added to the existing pool of children awaiting
surgery.
According to the Pediatric Cardiac Society of India (PCSI) , the prevalence of congenital cardiac anomalies
is one in every 100 live births; or an estimated 2,00,000 children are born with CHD every year. Only 16,000
of them receive treatment. At least 30% of infants who have complex defects require surgical intervention
to survive their first birthday but only 2,500 operations can be performed each year. A case in point is the
premier All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) , where infants are waitlisted till 2026 for cardiac
surgery. A retired health bureaucrat says that there has been more neglect and little improvement in child
health care because creating a comprehensive paediatric cardiology care service is usually considered
economically unviable — it is resource intensive and requires infrastructure investment that policymakers
choose to evade. There are 22 hospitals and less than 50 centres in India with infant and neonatal cardiac
services. Geographically, these centres are not well distributed either. A 2018 cardiology department report
of AIIMS, highlighted how South India accounted for 70% of these centres; most centres are located in
regions with a lower burden of CHD.
What does the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) state about Congenital Heart Disease (CHD)?