4th Anemia Mukt Bharat Partner's Meeting

National Centre of Excellence and Advanced Research on Anemia Control (NCEAR-A)

20th April, 2022

New Delhi, India

4th Anemia Mukt Bharat Partner’s Meeting

Acknowledgements

The meeting was jointly organized by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW),

the Government of India (GoI), National Centre of Excellence and Advanced Research on

Anemia Control (NCEAR-A) and UNICEF, India.

We acknowledge the following experts for chairing sessions during the meeting:

• Dr. Sila Deb, Additional Commissioner, Child Health & I/C Nutrition, MoHFW, GoI

• Prof. Shashi Kant, Professor, and Head, Centre for Community Medicine (CCM), All

India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi

• Dr. Arjan De Wagt, Chief, Child Development and Nutrition, UNICEF

We gratefully acknowledge the contribution and participation of all the partner agencies for

sharing their scientific work around AMB program. The deliberations from the meeting will

help the partner agencies and other development organisations in the decision-making for

ensuring accountability and implementation of AMB.

Abbreviations and acronyms

AIIMS All India Institute of Medical Sciences AMB Anemia Mukt Bharat

AMB Anemia Mukt Bharat

C2IQ Coverage, Continuity, Intensity and Quality

CCM Centre for Community Medicine

CHAI The Clinton Health Access Initiative

COVID-19 Corona Virus Disease of 2019

GoI Government of India

HMIS Health Management and Information System

IAPSM Indian Association of Preventive and Social Medicine

ICMR Indian Council of Medical Research

IEC Information Education and Communication

IEG The Institute of Economic Growth

IFA Iron Folic Acid

IFPRI International Food and Policy Research Institute

IIHMR Indian Institute of Health Management Research

KPI Key Performance Indicators

MNCH Maternal Neonatal, and Child Health

MoHFW Ministry of Health and Family Welfare

NCEAR-A National Centre of Excellence and Advanced Research on Anemia Control

NFHS National Family Health Survey

NHM National Health Mission

NI Nutrition International

NIFTEM National Institute of Food Technology Entrepreneurship and Management

NIPI National Iron Plus Initiative

PIP Program Implementation Plan

SBCC Social and Behavioural Change Community

SCEAR-A State Centre of Excellence and Advanced Research on Anemia Control

SRLM State Rural Livelihoods Mission

UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund

Executive summary

The fourth Anemia Mukt Bharat (AMB) Partner’s Meeting was held on 20th April 2022 at Dr.

Ramalingaswami Board Room, AIIMS, New Delhi. The meeting was attended by more than

65 participants from thirty-one partner agencies including representatives from ministry,

academic institutions and other organisations. The meeting was co-chaired by Dr. Sila

Deb, Additional Commissioner, Child Health & I/C Nutrition, MoHFW, GoI, Prof. Shashi

Kant, Professor and Head, Centre for Community Medicine (CCM), All India Institute of

Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi and Dr. Arjan De Wagt, Chief, Child Development and

Nutrition, UNICEF.

AMB partner’s meeting was a platform convened by NCEAR-A to facilitate all the

development partners working in different domains and geographies to share their work on

AMB and to discuss modalities to strengthen the existing health system blocks of AMB.

Convergence and partnership among various organisations, line ministries and academic

institutions are essential for achieving the targets of the AMB strategy. During the meeting

series of talks were presented by eminent speakers on the various components of AMB from

research , supply chain implementation to best practices. The panel discussion was themed

upon the role of partner agencies at national and state level in strengthening the agenda of AMB

program. Various aspects like non-nutritional causes of anemia, food fortification, pediatric

anemia, behaviour change and communication and supply chain issues were discussed.

Introduction

Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, had launched the Anemia Mukt

Bharat (AMB) program in 2018 with an ambitious target of a three point percent annual

reduction in the burden of anemia. AMB recognizes research as an important component of the

program and established the National Centre of Excellence and Advanced Research on Anemia

Control (NCEAR-A) at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, to support

the AMB program in incorporating scientific and community perspectives for control of

anemia.

In the initial AMB partner’s meeting, it was realized that there was a need to expand the base

of development partners to facilitate cross-learning and prevent duplication of efforts for

achieving the desired targets of AMB in a systematic and streamlined manner. Hence to

facilitate cohesion between various partners working along the spectrum of research areas

themed around anemia and foster collaborations and enhance the quality of work undertaken

by them, the 4th AMB partner’s meeting was held.

Fourth Anemia Mukt Bharat Partner’s meeting

The meeting started with a welcome address delivered by the chair persons. Dr. Sila Deb,

Additional Commissioner, Child Health & I/C Nutrition, MoHFW, GoI recognized the setback,

Anemia Mukt Bharat had faced, due to the ongoing pandemic of COVID-19 and suggested that

this partner’s meeting should be utilised as an opportunity for all partner agencies to come

together and synergize their efforts for the prevention and control of anemia and regain

momentum.

Dr. Shashi Kant, Professor and Head, CCM, AIIMS, New Delhi, briefed the participants about

the role of NCEAR-A under the AMB strategy. He also highlighted the importance of

harmonization and convergence between all partner agencies, academic institutions, and

various ministries for better coordination, cross-learning and streamlining actions for achieving

the targets of AMB.

Then Dr. Kapil Yadav, Additional Professor, CCM, AIIMS, and Nodal Person, NCEAR-A

delivered the welcome address and greeted all the participating agencies . He highlighted that

from the inception of NCEAR-A in 2018, partnership has been a key pillar of AMB and we

should strive for cohesive and fruitful collaborations in the future to achieve the ambitious

targets of the AMB program.

The meeting had a rich panel of speakers, who discussed a wide variety of anemia themed

topics during their presentations. Dr. William Joe from the Institute of Economic Growth

presented Anemia in NFHS 5: Implications for Anemia Mukt Bharat program’. Dr. William

highlighted on the increase in prevalence of anemia in all age groups, checking for the

reliability of estimates due to increased confidence interval in children and focus more on life

cycle approach.

Ms. Preetu Mishra from UNICEF Jharkhand presented on ‘Health system strengthening for

anemia control: Role of UNICEF to support AMB’. She highlighted on the necessity of multi-

sectorial approach for the AMB and 7 proof of concepts for innovation in AMB.

Dr. Bharati Kulkarni, ICMR presented on ‘Ongoing research in ICMR and its affiliates on

anemia’. She highlighted on the study of ‘Screen and Treat for Anemia Reduction (STAR)’

strategy: A cluster-randomized trial among 14000 participants in rural Telangana. She further

mentioned regarding the ongoing studies by the institute on ‘Effect of biofortified pearl millet

bar on gut microbiota’ and ‘Gut microbiota modulation with IFA supplementation’. In addition,

she informed that the Centre for Research, Management, and Control of Hemoglobinopathies

has been inaugurated in Chandrapur, Maharashtra

Mr. Ameet Babre, Nutritional International, presented their work on ‘Implementation

Research in the state of Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat’. He had highlighted the steps of the

research adopted as formative research, developing an implementation model and process

evaluation for scaling-up of advocacy and intervention.

Ms. Ruchika Chugh Sachdeva from BMGF shared her insights on ‘Accelerating the needle

for anemia reduction’. She highlighted on behaviour towards IFA, support to UP state through

IHAT and suggested to use vaccine delivery green channel for IFA distribution.

Dr. Sebanti Ghosh, Alive & Thrive, presented the ‘key learnings from the supply chain

handbook’. She highlighted on the importance of adopting the five-point framework of capacity

building, pathways for advocating change and transformation and support.

Dr. Himanshu Dhingra from CHAI gave an overview of the work being done in collaboration

with Govt of Madhya Pradesh in respect to AMB. Activities such as IFA supply chain

strengthening, utilizing SRLMs and self-help groups for AMB implementation and assisting

the state government task force for sickle cell anemia and other hemoglobinopathies.

Dr. Gomathi Ramaswamy from AIIMS Bibinagar spoke about the development of State

Centres of Excellence to address the state specific issues of anemia, proposed a possible

structure and role for SCER-A.

Dr. Sutapa Bandyopadhyay Neogi from IIHMR gave a brief comparison on the management

of moderate and severe anemia in pregnancy stated in the operational guidelines of AMB. The

various domains discussed were on IFA supplementation, deworming, testing of anemia and

clinical management guidelines for anemia in pregnancy.

Dr. Ziaul Martin from UNICEF had appreciated the progress and efforts made by all partners

in the establishment, implementation, and monitoring of AMB initiatives. He specifically

stressed the importance of collaboration and integration of information and ideas among

stakeholders and various partners in achieving the goals of the program.

The presentations were followed by panel discussion focused on partner engagement in AMB

at national and sate level. Dr. Arjan De Wagt, Chief, Child Development and Nutrition,

UNICEF chaired the panel discussion. He mentioned that many interventions of AMB are not

rolled out and reached full coverage yet due to various implementation challenges thus there is

an urgent need to scale up the interventions. He asked inputs from all the panellist on the

possible role and contribution of partner agencies to strengthen the agenda of AMB at the

National and State level. Dr. Ajay Khera from Engender Health emphasized on overcoming

the supply chain problems and developing a robust system where additional services can be

plucked in as and when required. Dr. Dinesh Baswal from PATH urged the partner agencies

to renew focus on the counselling and capacity building in Anemia Mukt Bharat for

sustainability of effort. Dr. Vatsla Dhadhwal from AIIMS, New Delhi emphasised on

opportunistic testing of hemoglobin at point of contact and treating the causes of anemia along

with other micronutrient deficiencies among pregnant women. Dr. Lopamudra Tripathi from

UNICEF briefed on the existing information and action gap in India regarding anemia and the

importance of continuous SBCC to mitigate the anemia prevalence in the country. She

emphasised the monitoring of these efforts and regular reinforcement of awareness program.

Dr. Hemang Shah from Children’s Investment Fund Foundation said that all the partner

agencies need to develop state-specific strategies and utilise administrative data to have a better

understanding of what works for the various states. The intervention need to be tailor made for

the states according to their specific requirements and administrative set up. Dr. Harivansh

Chopra from IAPSM urged all the members to focus on the non-anemic population and

suggested that India needs a comprehensive child health care program that will combine all the

vertical national health programs for the pediatric population. He emphasised that due care

should be taken to prevent the conversion of non anemics population to anemia pool. Dr.

Deepti Gulati from NIFTEM, suggested that the food fortification is a possible approach to

reach a wider population at once for combating high prevalence of anemia. In the end

Dr. Arjan De Wagt reiterate on the need to link data with action and take back the learnings

from the meeting and scale them through strong system approach.

Action Plan

1. Partner’s Mapping at State Level – It is planned to map the work done by all partner

agencies in order to avoid duplication of effort and enable cohesion between the partner

agencies for the activities undertaken at their end. The mapping of partners would be

undertaken at state level under 5 domains – Program roll out, procurement and supply

chain, demand generation, monitoring of AMB (Dash board based), implementation

research and large scale data analysis. This will align the tasks undertaken by the partners

in the state with the objectives envisaged by MoHFW for anemia control in specific states

as well as the country.

2. Expand Partner Base – 4th AMB partner’s meeting was a platform convened by

NCEAR-A for all the agencies working on various aspects of anemia to come together

and present their work. It was also an opportunity for these agencies to collaborate in areas

of common objectives to improve the quality of their future endeavours.

3. Capacity Building – Training and capacity building has been an important mandate of

NCEAR-A from the time of its inception. A series of workshops and meetings would be

planned with newly established AIIMS as well as the states to further the objective of

capacity building in hub and spoke mode.

4. Management of Moderate and Severe Anemia – The need to update the guidelines for

management of moderate to severe anemia especially among pregnant women was

highlighted in the meeting. An evidence based approach would be taken to revise the

guidelines after taking inputs from experts in the field along with review of recent

literature in the subject.

5. State SCEAR- A - Establishment of State Centres of Excellence to support capacity

building of state specific issues, ensures C2IQ till grassroot level was discussed during

the meeting. Setting up of SCEAR-A will be planned in phased manner, with a pilot

project initiated in the state of Uttarakhand and Telangana.

6. Implementation Research – A project regarding implementation research to be

conducted in various states to identify the bottle necks in rolling out of various

intervention of AMB. This will also enable stakeholders to identify the facilitators and

barriers in operationalisation of 6x6x6 strategy in the state, so that lessons can be learnt

from best practices and efforts are focused to to address the unmet gaps for different

context and setting.

7. Next Partner’s meet in August – September, 2022 – The next partner’s meet is planned

to be convened by NCEAR-A in the month of August -September to discuss the

monitoring of 6x6x6 strategy of AMB along with possible mechanism to overcome the

barriers being identified during the process.

4th Anemia Mukt Bharat (AMB) Partner’s Meeting Organized by: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) and

National Centre of Excellence and Advanced Research on Anemia Control (NCEAR-A)

Supported by: UNICEF

Date: 20.04.2022 Time: 01:30 pm – 05:00 pm Venue: Dr. Ramalingaswami Board Room, AIIMS,

New Delhi

Agenda

Chair: Dr. Sila Deb, Additional Commissioner, Child Health & I/C Nutrition, MoHFW, GoI and

Dr. Shashi Kant, Professor and Head, Centre for Community Medicine, AIIMS, New Delhi

Time Topic Speaker

01.30 - 02.00 pm Registration

02.00 - 02.10 pm Welcome and opening remarks Dr. Kapil Yadav, NCEAR-A, AIIMS

02.10 - 02.25 pm Anemia in NFHS-5 survey: Implications for

AMB program

Dr. William Joe, IEG

02.25 - 02.40 pm Update on district ‘Story of Change’ work on anemia

Dr. Samuel Scott, IFPRI

02.40 - 02.55 pm Health system strengthening for anemia control: Role of

UNICEF to support AMB

Ms. Preetu Mishra, UNICEF Jharkhand

02.55 - 03.10 pm Formative research on maternal IFA and calcium

supplementation in Gujarat

Ms. Mini Varghese, Nutrition International

03.10 - 03.25 pm Accelerating the needle for anemia reduction Ms. Ruchika Chugh Sachdeva, BMGF

03.25 - 03.35 pm Key learnings, insights and good practices on

supply chain

Dr. Sebanti Ghosh, Alive & Thrive

03.35 - 03.45 pm Intervention to reduce burden of anemia in

Madhya Pradesh

Mr. Himanshu Dhingra, CHAI

03.45 - 03.55 pm Linking national centre with state centre of anemia research

Dr. Gomathi Ramaswamy, AIIMS,

Bibinagar

03.55 - 04.05 pm Management of moderate and severe anemia

during pregnancy

Dr. Sutapa Bandyopadhyay Neogi, IIHMR

04.05 - 04.15 pm

Ongoing research of ICMR and its affiliates on anemia Dr. Bharati Kulkarni, ICMR

04.15 - 04.25 pm

Leveraging partnerships for addressing anemia under the AMB Dr. Md Ziaul Matin, UNICEF India

04.25 - 04.55 pm Panel Discussion:

- Way forward for Partner’s engagement in AMB at

national and state level

• Key action points on AMB and academic partnership

network

Chair:

• Mr. Arjan De Wagt, Chief, Nutrition,

UNICEF India

Panelist:

• Dr. Ajay Khera, Engender Health

• Dr. Dinesh Baswal, PATH

• Dr. Vatsla Dadhwal, Department of

Obs. & Gyn, AIIMS

• Dr. Lopamudra Tripathi, UNICEF

• Dr. Hemang Shah, Children’s

Investment Fund Foundation

04.55 - 05.00 pm Vote of Thanks Dr. Ravneet Kaur, AIIMS

*5:00 pm onwards High Tea

List of attendees

S. No Organization Contact Person

1. NCEAR-A, AIIMS 1. Dr. Kapil Yadav

2. Dr. Shashi Kant

3. Dr. Puneet Misra

4. Dr. Anil Goswami

5. Dr. Ravneet Kaur

6. Dr. Vatsla Dadhwal

2. Institute of Economic Growth (IEG) 7. Dr. William Joe

8. Mr. Ajay Verma

3. New Concept (Tarang Hub) 9. Ms. Surkhraj Vimal Kaur

4. UNICEF 10. Dr. Arjan De Wagt

11. Dr. Lopamudra Tripathi

12. Dr. Md Ziaul Matin

7. Maternal of Health and Family

Welfare:

13. Dr. Sila Deb

14. Ms. Deepti Singh

8. AIIMS, Bibinagar 15. Dr. Gomathi Ramaswamy

9. Alive and Thrive 16. Dr. Sebanti Ghosh

10. Ashoka University 17. Mr. Shashvat Singh

11. BMGF 18. Ms. Ruchika Chugh Sachdeva

19. Mr. Shekhar Menon

12. Centre for Policy Research 20. Mr. Ritwik Shukla

13. CHAI 21. Mr. Himanshu Dhingra

22. Ms. Mansharan Seth

14. Children’s Investment Fund

Foundation

23. Dr. Hemang Shah

15. Engender Health 24. Dr. Ajay Khera

16. Evidence Action 25. Ms. Meeta Mathur

26. Ms. Shikha Singhal

17. FFRC (FSSAI) 27. Dr. Vivek Arora

28. Ms. Nikita Goel

18. GAIN 29. Dr. Arijit Chakrabarty

19. ICMR 30. Dr. Bharti Kulkarni

31. Dr. Taruna Arora

32. Dr. Amlin Shukla

20. IAVI 33. Dr. Drishti Sharma

21. IIHMR 34. Dr. Sutapa Bandyopadhyay Neogi

22 JHPIEGO 35. Dr. Parag Bhamare

36. Dr. Jitesh Kuwatada

23 NITI Aayog 37. Dr. Aakriti Gupta

38. Ms. Charu Arora

24 NIFTEM 39. Dr. Deepti Gulati

25 Nutrition International 40. Ms. Mini Varghese

41. Dr. Ameet Babre

26 PATH 42. Ms. Rohini Saran

43. Mr. Vaibhav

44. Ms. Akanksha Singh

45. Dr. Aishwarya Kharade

46. Dr. Dinesh Baswal

S. No Organization Contact Person

27 PANS 47. Dr. Raghvendra Singh

28 Public Health Nutrition and

Development Centre

48. Dr. Sheila C. Vir

29 Sight and Life 49. Ms. Neha Bainsla

30 UNICEF Jharkhand 50. Ms. Preetu Mishra

31 Vitamin Angel 51. Ms. Aishwarya Panicker

32 HemoCue 52. Ms. Ankita Rege

53. Mr. Krishna

33 Associations

Indian Associations of preventive

and Social Medicine (IAPSM)

54. Dr. Harivansh Chopra, President, IAPSM

NCEAR-A Team 55. Dr. (Lt Col) Neha Singh

56. Dr. Surbhi Gupta

57. Ms. Kashish Vohra

58. Mr. Manish Saini

59. Ms. Areeba Khanam

60. Mr. Indrajeet

61. Mr. Manik Yadav

62. Dr. Girish

63. Dr. Surabhi Puri

64. Dr. Roshan

65. Dr. Riya

66. Dr. Shahana

67. Dr. Anjusha

“4th Anemia Mukt Bharat Partner’s Meeting” At a Glance

Group photograph of 4th AMB Partner's Meeting

Address by eminent chairpersons at 4th AMB Partner's Meeting

Discussion during the 4th AMB partners meeting

Panel discussion during 4th AMB Partner’s Meeting

Engagement of participants during 4th AMB Partner’s Meeting

Chairperson moderating the panel discussion during 4th AMB Partner’s Meeting