Mario Redondo, from the Christian Democratic Alliance party, said he would demand explanations from the Health authorities for an alleged increase in child mortality.
According to the information in the hands of the legislator, the Inter-annual Infant Mortality Rate of the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses (INEC), for the period from July 2016 to June 2017, increased compared to the same period for 2015-2016. He emphasizes that although there was a decrease in births, there was also an increase in deaths during the first year of life:
Between July 2015 and June 2016: There were 72,080 births and 542 child deaths.
Between July 2016 and June 2017: There were 69,181 births and 555 deaths.
The data indicate that the inter-annual mortality rate was 8.02 per thousand, which means that there were 8 deaths for every thousand births.
Olga Marta Araya, coordinator of the Population Unit of the INEC, explained that this increase is not significant and does not respond to any change, since between both periods the rate went from 7.68 to 8.02.
Olga Arguedas, director of the National Children’s Hospital (HNN), said that it is important to point out that the data on infant mortality is “very exciting”, because it is expected with anxiety and gets the authorities to reflect on the subject.
INEC will release all of the data on August 25th. The current information comes from preliminary data that may vary.