The data went unnoticed in the middle of a report from the plenary session of the Provincial Party Committee
14ymedio, Havana, 31 January 2026 — Infant mortality in Havana saw a dramatic increase in just one year, rising from 10.2 per 1,000 live births in 2024 to 14 in 2025. This figure, the highest in the country, was acknowledged this Friday by the First Secretary of the Provincial Committee of the Communist Party , Liván Izquierdo Alonso, during the last meeting of the Extraordinary Plenum of the Provincial Committee of the Party. In the middle of his report, in which he spoke of exceeding net sales and business profit targets, he discreetly revealed this shocking statistic, which demonstrates the collapse of the healthcare system in which the country finds itself.
The revelation, though brief, hinted at the magnitude of the problem. During his speech, Izquierdo attempted to qualify the figure by pointing out that there are 4% more family doctor’s offices in the capital than last year, an improvement that in theory should bring healthcare closer to the population, but which in practice fails to offset the increase in mortality.
Last year, the chikungunya and dengue epidemic overwhelmed the island’s healthcare system, claiming the lives of 8,500 people, the vast majority of whom were children. These arbovirus-caused diseases, which normally have a relatively low mortality rate, became a major threat due to the country’s deteriorating hygiene, sanitation, and food security. The combination of epidemic outbreaks, a lack of medical resources, insufficient medicines, and the nutritional vulnerability of many children created a scenario that authorities now recognize as a health emergency unlike anything seen since 2021, the most critical year of the COVID-19 pandemic in Cuba.
Adding to this worrying situation is the low birth rate: last year ended with 3,108 fewer births than in 2024.
Just a month ago, at the end of 2025, the Ministry of Public Health announced a worrying increase in infant mortality in Cuba, which rose from 7.1 to 9.7 deaths per 1,000 live births in a single year—figures that already signaled the accelerating crisis across the country. In Havana, the figures skyrocketed from 10.2 at the end of 2024 to 14 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2025, a jump that reflects an alarming trend. Since 2020, Havana has remained above the national average.
Adding to this worrying situation is the low birth rate: last year ended with 3,108 fewer births than in 2024, while the mass exodus that, according to Cuban demographer Juan Carlos Albizu-Campos , has reduced the island’s population by 24% in just four years, is contributing to a shift in the country’s demographic structure. The island is gradually aging; more than a third of its inhabitants are over sixty, and young people represent a decreasing proportion of the Cuban population—they are the ones who emigrate the most—a reality that also influences the country’s social and health dynamics.
This unprecedented crisis is becoming increasingly impossible for the regime to conceal, a regime that until recently boasted of being a leader in healthcare in the region. In 2018, the country recorded an infant mortality rate of 3.9 per 1,000 live births, although several experts questioned the accuracy of this figure, which was by far the best in the Americas. In any case, the contrast with the 2025 figures highlights the brutal deterioration of the healthcare situation in less than a decade.
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