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Cuba’s infant mortality rate, notoriously low, remained for the 8th consecutive year below 5 per 1,000 live births. Cuba is and continues to be among the top 20 nations in the world for infant mortality and according to Telesurv, the leading country in the Americas.

The latest statistics come from Cuba’s Department of Medical Records and Health Statistics, showing that in 2015 Cuba’s infant mortality rate was 4.3 per 1,000 live births--with 535 child deaths out of 125,064 births recorded in the year.

Some provinces ranked even lower than the national average, with Pinar del Río at 3.4, Havana at 3.8 and Granma also at 3.8; 28 municipalities across Cuba reported zero deaths in infants.

The rates are undoubtedly a result of Cuba’s national health care, a state notorious for its level of care and access as well as its high literacy rates.

But for a country still considered a “developing nation” by its counterparts, especially its Western neighbor to the north the United States, the numbers are something of a shock.

Head of the Maternal and Child Department of the Ministry of Public Health, Dr. Roberto Alvarez Fumero told local paper Granma that the impressive numbers are due to a healthcare system that emphasizes diagnosis and prevention.

"The low rates were achieved with decisive participation in perinatal care wards, neonatal units and pediatric intensive care networks, pediatric cardiology surgery and neonatal care, complemented by cross-sectoral and community participation in supporting health activities," Fumero said.

A 2014 article appearing in the Huffington Post claims that Cuba’s national life expectancy is 78 years, allowing Cubans to live on average, 30 years longer than Haitians, their neighbor to the east. According to the same article, “In 2025, Cuba will have the highest proportion of its population over the age of 60 in all of Latin America.”

The icy relationship between Cuba and America was thawed somewhat in December 2014, when President Obama and Raúl Castro announced that the countries would begin normalizing relations.

And a year later, President Obama still considers the move positive, but expects more changes in the coming years. “Our original theory on this was not that we were going to see immediate changes or loosening of the control of the Castro regime, but rather that over time you’d lay the predicates for substantial transformation,” Obama told the Washington Post.

On Tuesday 15 December, charge d’affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Jeffrey DeLaurentis said Cuba and America had made “good progress and come a long way” on normalization of relations.

But regarding issues of the environment, regulation and counter-narcotics efforts, DeLaurentis said the two nations “have either reached understandings or continue to narrow our differences in ways that suggest we could soon conclude such understandings.”

U.S. tourism is growing as well and polls show a desire of Americans to visit the Caribbean nation.

While American empire will claim that normalizing relations is the best thing for Cuba, perhaps it is the other way around and an open relationship with Cuba is the best thing for the United States.

For example, the infant mortality rate in Mississippi was 9.6 per 1,000 live births in 2011, significantly higher in the so-called “developed nation” than Cuba.