In 4 charts: Why UP has more to learn from Kerala as far as health is concerned

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath faced a lot of flak on social media for his remark that Kerala should take lessons how to run hospitals from UP.

Even Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan did not stop short of taking a jibe at the CM.

He tweeted, “Thanks @myogiadityanath  for letting every Indian know that KERALA'S IMR is not only far better than UP but also many DEVELOPED countries.” along with a snapshot of a Times of India article with the headline reading, “Kerala’s IMR down to 10; national average is34”.

These responses came after the UP CM had mentioned instances of deaths due to dengue and Chikungunya.

“In the last year, in Kerala, from dengue, there have been more than 300 deaths. Uttar Pradesh is such a big state, yet it had fewer deaths from dengue. Many people have died from Chikungunya here, there hasn’t been a single Chikungunya death in Uttar Pradesh. These people are hiding the realities here,” Adityanath had said.

Keeping aside the war of words between the two political opposites, here is a look at some data which gives a clearer picture.

Going by data collated by Niti Ayog from successive Census data, National Health Surveys, and statistics of Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Unicef and other official sources, Kerala has been consistently performing better than UP.

Infant mortality rate

Data from the last 15 years show that even though UP has gradually improved, Kerala has been consistent with low infant mortalities, and is much lesser than UP’s.

Institutional Deliveries

Immunisation

Life expectancy

A study by three professors of IIM-Ahmedabad  found that Kerala fared best among the 21 Indians states when considering outcome variables. UP was the second worst.  

Dengue and Chikungunya

Yogi Adityanath had also said that Kerala has had 300 dengue deaths in a year.

Though Adityanath was not accurate with his numbers, Kerala does need to do more with tackling dengue.

According to a factcheck done by BoomLive, dengue is a major disease in Kerala and deaths in the cases of suspected dengue and confirmed dengue amounts to 207 in the year 2017. (183 were cases of suspected dengue and 24 were cases of confirmed dengue).

Kerala has recorded  16,530 cases of dengue as per the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP), while Uttar Pradesh had only recorded 302 cases of dengue with 17 deaths in the year 2017.

67 cases of clinically suspected chikungunya has been recorded in Kerala as of August 20, 2017.

But as BoomLive points out, while Kerala needs to do much more to curb dengue and chikungunya, Uttar Pradesh that does not have too many cases of these two diseases, has its own problem. UP has seen 217 encephalitis deaths in the last 8 months.