Keeping the focus on India's other healthcare issues

The media focus on the Swine (A-H1N1) flu has stemmed from its priority of spreading fear and panic than a rational process of keeping issues within perspective. It is thus important that Chindu has given some balance by focusing on other healthcare priorities like infant mortality and malnutrition which have claimed far more lives in a week than the Swine flu so far. Thomas Chandy who is the head of Save the Children has gathered some real interesting statistics and raises questions on how the Governments, health care organizations and media have conveniently put these important issues on the backburner to focus on Swine flu.
For example a total of 100-150 people have died due to Swine flu so far, but

According to government sources, in India 45 children die every hour due to respiratory infections. One child dies every two minutes due to diarrhoea. Annually in India, about two million children below the age of five die mainly from preventable causes: that is, thousands of children die every month of diseases that are easily treatable and even preventable.

While Chindu has shone a brief moment of light on this issue, one hopes it will continue focus on what is a severe problem for India's future and keeps the Government honest in its efforts to step up the funding and actions in this regard.