Irina Malenko: Cuba leaves the US behind. Infant death rate is lower there than in the United States

On January 3, the Cuban newspaper Granma gave figures of the infant death rate in countries of American continent over the year 2001. Cuba and Canada are at the head of the list of the countries with the lowest infant death rates: 6.2 for every thousand births. It is the lowest death rate over the whole history of the country.

The United States, which is still imposing economic sanctions upon the Freedom Island, is inferior to Cuba in this respect (seven deaths for every 1000 births). The infant death rate and average lifespan are traditionally regarded as internationally acknowledged showings of a nation’s health. In 2001, the average lifespan was 76 years in Cuba!

“How did it come to be that the poor nation, criminally persecuted with an iron hand of the economical and military super power within already 40 years, could demonstrate to the world such an indisputable success in the field of people’s health?” – Granma writes.

“The Cuban and international experts to whom Granma addressed this question are united in the position that this has become possible only thanks to the unbending political will of the revolutionary government that considers the population’s health, and first of all that of mothers and children, a priority, even under the most difficult economical conditions.”

In 2001, mothers’ birth-death rates decreased, while the all-Cuban figures make 4.2 on 10.000 births (in 2000-5.2). “Health is one of the main rights of a human being,” – Granma stresses.

Irina Malenko PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Vera Solovieva

Read the original in Russian: http://www.pravda.ru/main/2002/01/04/35360.html