For Cuban children, all love and dedication is not enough. That is why translating the efforts and commitments of more than 400,000 health workers throughout the country into tangible results will enable Cuba to reduce its infant mortality rate to 7.1 per 1,000 live births by 2023.

At the beginning of 2024, what may seem more than simple figures, data, and flat statistics, sums up the dedication and devotion of those who, in their daily work, draw smiles and hopes in Cuban families. They are hours, days, and long nights of sacrifice, medical guards, specialized consultations, community and intersectoral work, home visits, and accompaniment to mothers, among other permanent protocols of the Ministry of Public Health (Minsap).

When the world shows alarming and sad figures, even in developed countries, this decrease in infant deaths in the Greater Antilles is, without fear of being mistaken, a gift to the people, because it is a matter of lives saved, of defending the most precious thing that the human being possesses, and much more if it is a matter of newborns.

Dr. Catherine Chibás Pérez, National Head of the Maternal and Infant Program (PAMI), even though she cannot avoid the pain of each death, speaks with pride that there are 74 fewer deaths than in 2022 when a rate of 7.5 was reported. «Today there are 6 provinces with numbers below the country’s average, she assures, where the best indicators correspond to Pinar del Río with 3.1; Artemisa with 3.9; Holguín with 4.7; Sancti Spíritus with 4.8; Villa Clara with 5.7 and Matanzas with 6.9.»

It was 2023 with satisfaction that 25 municipalities reported no deaths under one year of age, corresponding 4 to Pinar del Río (Mantua, Sandino, San Luis, and Guanes); 4 to Artemisa (Guanajay, Güira de Melena, Alquízar, and Candelaria); 1 to La Habana (Regla); 1 to Mayabeque (San Nicolás) and 4 to Matanzas (Martí, Pedro Betancourt, Calimete and Los Arabos).