MOSCOW, February 10, 2004. (RIA Novosti) - According to the data of the Health Ministry, last year 1,474,000 babies were born in Russia, 77,000 more than in 2002. The infant mortality dropped from 15.3 to 12.4 per thousand new-born babies. These figures were made public on Tuesday by Deputy Health Minister Olga Sharapova at the congress of Russian paediatrists in Moscow.
According to her, in the past three years a tendency has taken shape in the country towards an increase in the birth rate.
The deputy minister said that the main cause of infant mortality was "traumas and injuries," and among schoolchildren - road incidents, as a result of which 3,063 children died in 2003.
