On the morning of July 23, Shakuntala Kirkire, a housewife in Bandrachiwadi village in the western state of Maharashtra, carried her 10-month-old daughter in her arms and walked in rain down the slope of a hill on which her village stands. Her husband, Ajay Kirkire, walked close to her, holding up an umbrella to protect their sick child as they tried to reach the government-run clinic in a neighboring village.
A few minutes later, Mr. and Mrs. Kirkire stopped midway. Priya, their child, had died. She had been born healthy but had lost weight rapidly over the months. At the time of her death, Priya weighed 4.5 kilograms (10 pounds), four kilograms less than what is considered normal for her age. Doctors listed pneumonia as the cause of her death in government records. A study published by the British charity Save the Children in 2012 estimated that 1.83 million Indian children die every year before the age of 5. |
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