Cuban Infant Mortality Rate: Sancti Spiritus “Miracle”

When only one year ago Sancti Spiritus province closed 2011 with one of the highest infant mortality rates in Cuba, 5.9 deaths per thousand live births, not even local authorities in charge of reversing this situation could have calculated that twelve months later the territory would halve that figure and become a reference for the entire nation.

However, Dr. Pavel Nodarse Fleites, head of the Maternal and Infant Care Program (PAMI, for its Spanish acronym) in Sancti Spiritus, refuses to believe, that the metamorphosis is born of a chance or miracle.

More than 200 organizational measures of technical, administrative, educational and control nature were the response  of the territory after summing up the positive and negative experiences of the previous period, a stage that warned of the need to win in integration, improving the training of the staff involved and especially working with proactive sense in the prenatal care.

The exceptional rate of 2.78 deaths per thousand live births was born of that incredible work, being the lowest in Cuba in 2012 and setting a record for Sancti Spiritus in its history as a province.

The good news also comes accompanied by substantial improvements in other key indicators such as the reduction of extreme low birth weight (less than 1000 grams) and the so-called preschool mortality, evidence of a harmonious and sustained work throughout the year.