What’s the news: Andhra Pradesh recorded 40.83 million (408.3 lakh) health IDs or Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA) on July 12, 2023 – the highest number of ABHAs recorded in the country. The state is followed by Madhya Pradesh with 40.23 million (402.3 lakh) ABHAs and Uttar Pradesh with 39.97 million (399.7 lakh) ABHAs. Why it matters: Last month, we covered the National Health Authority’s plan to set up 100 microsites across India to further the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM). These microsites are likely to create further focused pockets of health data without the blanket protection of a feasible health data protection policy. The CoWin data leak incident was a prime example of what happens to such datasets in the absence of proper data safeguards. Yet, it appears that regardless of many such concerns, including the fallacies around registries recording details of healthcare professionals, the government is keen to go forward with a virtual health data system. In such a case, it is worth taking a closer look at the state with the highest number of ABHAs so far to get an estimate of the growth of ABDM in India. East Godavari records highest number of ABHAs: Within Andhra Pradesh, the highest number of ABHAs were recorded in East Godavari, with 4.36 million (43.6 lakh) IDs. As per Census 2011, the projected population for this district by 2023 is supposed to be 5.17 million (54.17 lakh) individuals. The next district with the highest ABHAs is Guntur, with 3.92 million (39.2 lakh) IDs. As…
