Around 22,000 obstetricians and gynaecologists will join hands to work with schools and communities to tackle the problem of anaemia, under a newly-launched Central initiative called "12 by 12" which will seek to ensure that every child by the age of 12 years has haemoglobin of 12g per cent.

The Federation of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Societies of India (FOGSI) has joined hands with the government to focus on increasing iron intake of children, control worm and other infections, and to improve the overall nutritional status by changing the dietary pattern to make iron more bio-available.

This innovative initiative has recently been launched by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, WHO, FOGSI and UNICEF along with other partners with the country reporting high incidence of under-nourishment.

A government survey released this year found 46 per cent of children under the age of three years were undernourished and the programme is aimed to eliminate the problem by the year 2015. The National Family Health Survey found that the percentage of women and children in India who were anaemic had increased to 56 per cent and 79 per cent respectively since the late 1990s.

Though nutritional anaemia affects all age and sex groups in India, it is particularly severe among pregnant women, lactating mothers, adolescent girls and pre-school age (1-5 yrs.) children. More than half of the pregnant women suffer from anaemia and 13 per cent are severely anaemic (haemoglobin levels below 7gm./dl.). One in five of all the maternal deaths are attributed to anaemia during pregnancy. Nearly 70 million i.e. 60-70 per cent of all children below 6 years suffer from varying degrees of anaemia in our country. More than half of the adolescent girls (50-60 per cent) are anaemic, according to the statistics with the Centre.

The government is implementing the Reproductive and Child Health Programme. Prophylaxis and treatment of nutritional anaemia among pregnant women is an important intervention under this programme. Universal screening of pregnant women for anaemia is part of the antenatal check up. All pregnant women are provided iron and folic acid tablets during their antenatal visits through the existing network of sub-centres and primary health centres. Every pregnant woman is given 100 tablets of iron and folic acid (large) for prevention of anaemia. Pregnant women who are found to be clinically anaemic are given an additional 100 tablets. For this purpose, funds are provided to the states for procurement of IFA tablets.