EU's third highest infant mortality rate

The number of babies who don't reach their first birthday is still considered to be high in Malta when compared to the rest of the EU.

With an infant mortality rate of 6.5 per thousand live births, Malta has the third highest infant mortality rate in the EU, only surpassed by Bulgaria (9.2) and Latvia (8.1).

According to new statistics published by Eurostat yesterday, the average infant mortality rate in the EU in 2007 stood at 4.7 while in some member states the number of babies dying during their first year is much lower than that.

Luxembourg tops the list with an infant mortality rate of just 1.8 followed by the northern European member states of Sweden (2.5) and Finland (2.7).

Still, progress in this area has been substantial and rapid even in Malta.

Just four decades ago, in 1965, almost 35 babies out of every thousand live births in Malta used to die from some medical complication. This has been reduced drastically over the past four decades.

Moreover, local specialists say the high rate could be attributable to the fact that abortion is illegal in Malta. In 2006, the head of gynaecology Mark Brincat had said that a good percentage of the babies who die soon after birth have an incurable "lethal congenital disorder".

The EU's statistics arm said that the average infant mortality rate in the EU in 1965 stood at 28.6. The largest absolute falls in the rate over the 40-year period were recorded in Portugal (from 64.9 infant deaths per 1,000 live births in 1965 to 3.4 in 2007), Poland (from 41.6 to 6.0), Hungary (from 38.8 to 5.9), Romania (from 44.1 to 12.0), Italy (from 35.0 to 3.7) and Greece (from 34.3 to 3.5).