Leading experts, government representatives, researchers, and community stakeholders from Australia and India have come together in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, for the India-Australia Drowning Prevention Technical Exchange, a landmark event focused on strengthening international collaboration to prevent drowning and save lives. The three-day exchange is being co-hosted by the Royal Life Saving Society Australia, The George Institute for Global Health and Directorate of Medical Education, Thiruvananthapuram, and funded by Maitri Grant from The Centre for Australia-India Relations.
Drowning claims around 300,000 lives worldwide each year yet remains a major and often overlooked public health challenge. In India, the National Crime Records Bureau recorded 38,503 drowning deaths in 2022, around 38,000 reported deaths in a single year-underscoring the urgent need for stronger prevention and better surveillance.
The risks are especially acute for communities whose daily lives and livelihoods bring them into contact with water. WHO identifies routine exposure to rivers, ponds, lakes and wells as an important risk factor, particularly among poorer and rural populations. Kerala offers a valuable setting for learning directly from disaster management officials, emergency services, frontline practitioners and fishing communities about locally led solutions, and how these can inform action elsewhere.
Australia brings internationally recognised expertise in water safety education, drowning surveillance and evidence-informed prevention. Yet its latest figures show that progress cannot be taken for granted: 313 people drowned in 2025-26, a toll 10% above the ten-year average. These continuing losses reinforce the importance of reaching people across different ages, backgrounds and aquatic activities.
Together, India and Australia have an opportunity to turn shared learning into practical action-combining research, community knowledge and policy experience to strengthen prevention in both countries.
While inaugurating the India-Australia Drowning Prevention Technical Exchange, Hon'ble Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Government of Kerala, Shri K Muraleedharan, said, "When we speak about drowning, we are not speaking merely about statistics or public health indicators, we are speaking about human lives, we are speaking about children who leave home to play and never return, about fishermen who venture into the sea to earn for livelihood and do not come back. Each drowning death leaves behind a grieving family and a permanent void that can never be filled."
He also highlighted five key priorities for strengthening drowning prevention efforts:
- Awareness and education, with an emphasis on survival swimming skills and water safety education.
- Protection of high-risk locations through scientific mapping and targeted safety measures.
- Strengthening community-based rescue systems, including first responders, police personnel and fishermen, through community training initiatives.
- Strengthening healthcare and emergency medical response through community CPR training and improved ambulance response systems.
- Linking drowning prevention with mental health and suicide prevention through counselling services and crisis interventions to address both physical and mental causes of death.
Dr. Justin Scarr, Chief Executive Officer of the Royal Life Saving Society Australia, highlighted the leadership being demonstrated in India and Kerala's innovative approach to drowning prevention, "India is leading the way in many areas and Kerala is showing how drowning prevention can become part of disaster risk reduction and climate action. I'm eager to learn from that approach and bring those lessons home to Australia, where floods and extreme weather put more lives at risk each year."
Drowning prevention extends far beyond the health sector and requires coordinated action across multiple stakeholders, including government, research institutions, disaster management agencies, education systems, fisheries, transport, tourism, urban planning, emergency services, community organisations and the media.
The Technical Exchange reflects this multi-sectoral approach, bringing together 30 representatives from diverse sectors to develop practical solutions that save lives. Attendees represent national and state governments, public health agencies, disaster management authorities, emergency services, researchers, non-government organisations, and community leaders from India and Australia. Discussions will focus on understanding the burden of drowning, improving data and surveillance systems, strengthening multisectoral collaboration, advancing research and innovation, and enhancing advocacy and public awareness.
Dr. Jagnoor Jagnoor, The George Institute for Global Health, underscored the critical role of multi-sectoral collaboration in preventing drowning, "Water is a source of life, and human civilisations have grown around it. But when water becomes a hazard, we need effective drowning prevention. A multi-sectoral approach is essential: no single organisation or sector can prevent drowning alone. Through this exchange, India and Australia are demonstrating the value of collaboration, shared learning and evidence-based action to tackle one of the world's most overlooked public health challenges."
The first step to drowning prevention is understanding the burden of death and risk factors. A survey in West Bengal funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies found that drowning deaths were severely underrepresented in official data, with the survey estimating 9,000 deaths per year. One third of these deaths occurred in young children under the age of five1, and were most common in rural, riverine and coastal regions.
Once the burden is understood, the World Health Organization states that drowning prevention interventions can include child supervision, water safety and swimming skills, lifejacket use, emergency response, and safer transport and safety infrastructure. Pilot projects in India have found that low-cost swim programs to teach children survival swimming, a "vaccine" against drowning, can be implemented sustainably and at scale. One such project is the SwimSafe program conducted in Kerala, funded by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Chennai2. In addition, high-risk groups such as coastal fisherfolk in Kerala and Tamil Nadu have been engaged to improve lifejacket usage to reduce drowning rates through a study funded by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)3. A further study funded by the ICMR piloted building 100 fences around high-risk ponds in the Sundarbans regions of West Bengal, which was found to be a low-resource intervention that increased protection for children from unintentional falls into water4.
The exchange shares learnings from these WHO- and UN-endorsed evidence-based strategies and partnerships by bringing together diverse expertise to identify practical ways to reduce drowning deaths and injuries and seeks to build lasting collaboration across countries and sectors.
The Australia-India Drowning Prevention Technical Exchange Program is supported by the Australian Government through the Centre for Australia-India Relations' Maitri Grants Program and led by the Royal Life Saving Society - Australia, with support from The George Institute for Global Health India and WHO India.
References
[1] https://www.georgeinstitute.org/news-and-media/news/25-people-die-from-drowning-each-day-in-west-bengal-12-are-children-a-new-statewide-survey-reveals
[2] https://www.georgeinstitute.org/news-and-media/news/turning-the-tide-on-drowning-swimsafe-initiative-supported-by-the-australian-government-empowers
[3] https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/health/new-study-aims-to-find-out-how-many-people-in-india-use-lifejackets/article69122961.ece
[4] https://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/early/2026/04/17/ip-2025-045884.abstract
