About 46 percent of girls in India under the age of 15 are anaemic, according to a report released on Monday 24 January, on the National Girl Child Day, annually observed on 24 January to raise awareness to promote the rights, education, health, and nutrition of the girl child across the country.

The findings by SRL Diagnostics is based on a total of 8,57,003 haemoglobin tests conducted in the past 7 years, between January 2015 and November 2021.

But in girls less than 15 years, the percentage of samples positive for anaemia was 46 percent. Of these, 13 percent were severely anaemic.

Further, the study also showed that Assam is the worst affected with 72 percent of married women being anaemic, followed by Haryana (69.7 percent) and Jharkhand (68.4 percent).

According to the National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-(III), more than half of women in India (55 percent) have anaemia.

"Diagnosing the root cause of anaemia is very important. While predominantly anaemia is caused due to iron deficiency or a deficiency in vitamin b12, there could be other reasons for anaemia that needs to be investigated," added Dr Anurag Bansal, Technical Director, SRL Diagnostics.

Anaemia is a condition in which there is a decreased number of circulating red blood cells and/or haemoglobin contained therein and is the most prevalent nutritional deficiency disorder in the world.

There are conditions which do not produce enough healthy blood cells, destroy too many red blood cells or lose circulating red blood cells; all these can all lead to anaemia.

If not treated, anaemia can worsen and become an underlying cause of chronic illness, such as impaired foetal development during pregnancy, delayed cognitive development and increased risk of infection in young children, and reduced physical capacity in all people.

(This story was published from a syndicated feed. Only the headline and picture has been edited by FIT)