Infant mortality rate stood at 9.3 per thousand in 2018

ANKARA

The rate of infant deaths across Turkey was 9.3 per thousand live births in 2018, the Turkish Statistical Authority (TÜİK) has said.

“While infant mortality rate was 9.4 per thousand in 2017, it was 9.3 per thousand in 2018,” TÜİK said in a statement on its website on June 11.

The number of infant deaths was 11,629 in 2018 with an annual decrease of 438, it added.

Under five mortality rate, which is the probability of dying during five years after birth, was 11.4 per thousand in 2018 with no change compared to the previous year.

The southeastern province of Gaziantep recorded the highest infant mortality rate with 15.3 per thousand in 2018. Gaziantep was trailed by Mardin with 14.9 per thousand, Şırnak and Kilis with 14.5 per thousand.

The eastern province of Tunceli had the lowest infant mortality rate with 5 per thousand. It was trailed by northwestern provinces of Kırklareli and Çanakkale with 5.1 per thousand. The infant mortality rate was 6.4 per thousand in the Black Sea province of Giresun and northwestern province of Edirne.

Meanwhile, the number of total deaths across Turkey was 426,106 persons in 2018, decreasing 0.1 percent annually. Some 54.6 percent of deceased persons were males and 45.4 percent of deceased persons were females.

While crude death rate, which is the number of deaths per thousand persons, was 5.3 in 2017, it was 5.2 per thousand in 2018.

The number of suicides resulting in death was 3,161 in 2018.

Some 75.6 percent of people who committed suicide were males and 24.4 percent of them were females.

The crude suicide rate, which is the number of suicides per hundred thousand of the population, was 3.88 in 2018. It means that in 2018 approximately four out of every one hundred thousand people committed suicide.