The government has taken initiative to record health-related data on pregnant women, mothers and under five children aiming to set a specific target of reducing maternal and child deaths.
It had already launched a pilot scheme to record data in Bashail and Sakhipur upazilas of Tangail in cooperation with the World Health Organisation, said Abul Kalam Azad, additional director general of directorate general of health services, on Saturday.
He was speaking at a workshop on ‘Commission on Information and Accountability for Women’s and Children’s Health’ organised by DGHS and Bangladesh Health Reporters Forum at DGHS.
Azad said that a database was developed to collect data on mothers and children by visiting door-to-door. ‘This data would help us know the maternal and child mortality rate as well as the causes of death.’
WHO developed a questionnaire which easily finds out the causes of death, he said, adding that the health workers would ask the family members and fill the forms.
‘The health workers will collect data in a common format and input that in the central database,’ Azad said. It will help monitor every mother and child centrally as well as the health workers of both the government and non-governmental organisations.
This data would show whether mothers took all antenatal check-up or not or even the next date for check-up, he said.
Azad said the aim is to resister all births, deaths and causes of deaths by 2015.
By getting such information, the country could adopt specific strategy to find a way out of the problems related to maternal and child mortality, he said.
BHRF president Toufiq Maruf was also present at the program.
-With New Age input
