During the first half of 2016 infant mortality decreased, but neonatal and premature babies deaths increased over the same period in 2015.
Neonatal deaths are those in which children die in the first 28 days of life or in the first half of the year. These deaths rose to 78.23%, 2.3% more than the previous year. The main causes of death in this group are health complications at birth.
The mortality infant rate (IMR) for the first half of 2016 was of 8.02 per thousand.
This means that for every thousand births, 8 children died before their first birthday. When compared to 2015 rate (8.43 per thousand), it shows a decrease of 4.90%.