Peer-reviewed article
What Impact Have SARS-CoV-2/Covid-19 Pandemic on the Reproductive and Child Health Programme (Immunisation, Maternal Health, Family Planning) of Andhra Pradesh in India over the 3 months after nationwide Lock down announcement in March 2020? Immunisation? Maternal Health? Family Planning?
Dr Piyush Kumar ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-sonnet-5-5This study looks at how the first three months of the Covid-19 lockdown (April to June 2020) affected reproductive and child health services in Andhra Pradesh, India. It compares routine government health data (HMIS) for 2020 with 2019 across immunisation, maternal and child health, and family planning. The authors report that service delivery and indicators were negatively affected during the lockdown and early pandemic. They also point to existing weaknesses such as limited resources, staff shortages and poor infrastructure, and call for a dedicated plan and a separate RCH cadre for future pandemics.
Key points
- Secondary HMIS data for April, May and June of 2019 and 2020 were compared for Andhra Pradesh.
- The lockdown and early pandemic phase had a negative impact on delivery of RCH services and on the indicators.
- The state has limited resources, manpower and infrastructure, which are barriers beyond the pandemic itself.
- There appears to be no proper plan for keeping usual health services running during a pandemic.
- The authors recommend a dedicated plan, including a separate RCH cadre.
Limitations
The abstract gives no figures, and the work uses only secondary administrative data from one state over three months, compared with a single prior year. It cannot show causes beyond the pandemic, and the data quality and the actual effect sizes are not reported in the abstract.
Abstract
ABSTRACTBackground: The delivery of reproductive and child health services is of utmost importance and prime concern in India particularly states like Andhra Pradesh with limited resources, poor infrastructure and huge demand on healthcare system. The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic had presented a challenge even for developed healthcare systems around the world. Objectives: The main aim of this research is to find out Impact of SARS-CoV-2 pandemic on the Reproductive and Child Health Programme of Andhra Pradesh in India over the 3 months after Lock down imposition countrywide in March 2020. Settings & Design: Different indicators group of RCH programme (immunisation, maternal & child health, family planning) for state of Andhra Pradesh were collected and compared from previous year. Materials & Methodology: Secondary data from HMIS of Ministry of Health & Family Welfare Government of India for 2019 & 2020 were taken for analysing and understanding impact of pandemic on RCH programme over 3 months after lock down viz. April/May/June 2020. The data obtained is analysed by using Microsoft Office software. Result: The analysis of secondary data obtained from HMIS of Ministry of Health & Family Welfare website for RCH programme of the state of Andhra Pradesh shows that the lock down period & initial early phase of SARS-CoV-2 pandemic have a negative impact over the delivery of health services as well as the indicators are also affected negatively. Besides the pandemic the state is also having lack of resources, manpower, poor infrastructure as well as positive deviance at community level. These are the barriers in fact beside the epidemic. It seems that there is lack of proper plan to deal with such pandemic situation. Conclusion: The State of Andhra Pradesh has taken various steps and strategy but it seems to be insufficient to give the desired results. The barriers of healthcare system and delivery of services should be rectified added with a proper dynamic plan to carry on usual health delivery services even in pandemics. The state of Andhra Pradesh needs to develop an exclusive plan such as separate RCH cadre to tackle such situations. Keywords- Health, Decrease, Pandemic, Services/service