Cuba ended up 2013 with an infant mortality rate of 4.2 per 1000 live births, the lowest figure in its history, according to the official media.
Cuba reached for the first time an infant mortality rate under 5.0 in 2008 with a rate of 4.7 per 1,000 live births and since then it has maintained similar rates with 4.8 in 2009, 4.5 in 2010, 4, 9 in 2011 and 4.6 last year.
Granma newspaper said on Thursday that this result places the island “among the first nations in the world with lowest indicator” and recalled that infant mortality rate allows measuring ” the quality with which a society cares for and protects its children, its health and welfare.”
“In the case of Cuba, it also shows how an archipelago of just over 11 million inhabitants , brutally blocked by the United States for over half a century, is able to achieve such an amazing success,” the newspaper added.
Eight of the 15 Cuban provinces achieved indicators below the national rate of 4.2 at the end of 2013, period in which there were 125.830 births, about 156 more than those occurred in 2012.
According to the Ministry of Public Health, the main causes of death of children under one year in Cuba are related to “perinatal conditions, congenital abnormalities and infections.”
Regarding maternal deaths, 26 of them occurred in 2013 directly related to pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum, for a rate of 20.7 women per 100,000 live births, also the lowest of Cuban history.
