The Health Ministry today said that statistics regarding mortality rates do not make a distinction between children born with birth defects and others considered healthy.

It was referring to a Eurostat report which showed that Malta had the highest mortality rate in Europe in 2017. The number of deaths per 1,000 births in Malta was 6.7, the data shows.

A ministry statement said today that the Euorstat statistics measures the mortality rate on the number of children born in a given country. In many European nations, women carrying foetuses who are suspected to be have a congenital anomaly often terminate the pregnancy, a practice that is not available in Malta.

These terminated pregnancies are therefore not included in the mortality rate, which takes into account only children who are born, the ministry said.

From analysis carried out in Malta in 2015, it results that 45.9% of all children who died in Malta between 2009 and 2013 had a congenital anomaly.

Proportionally, therefore, the mortality rate in Malta is 3.6 per 1,000 born, which is the same as the European average.