Health Minister protests at UN report

Azerbaijan’s top health official has come out against a recent UN report.

“The data on Azerbaijan provided in the UN report on demographic situation worldwide are untrue,” Minister of Health Ogtay Shiraliyev told journalists on Friday. He said that the Ministry of Health would shortly refute the information mentioned in the document.

The report issued by the UN Population Fund suggests that 73 out of 1,000 infants in Azerbaijan are still-born or die within a year after being born, compared to the average of 53 worldwide.

The figure is seven per thousand in developed countries, 58 in developing nations and 92 in under-developed ones.*