Petro montre des chiffres de la mortalité infantile au Congrès de manière trompeuse

In his latest speech before Congress, President Gustavo Petro presented figures on improvements in child mortality rates under his administration. He highlighted reductions in infant mortality due to malnutrition and overall among children under one year, under five years, and perinatal deaths. Petro concluded that his government had “saved more than 10,000 babies from the mortality rates they received in 2022.” His claims were echoed by the presidential account on X and by Petro himself in social media posts. The president linked these results to his preventive system, including medical visits to communities and Basic Health Units (EBS). Similar indicators, graphs, and arguments have been repeated in previous speeches, and the Detector has labeled them as misleading. This time, Petro again presents a misleading portrayal of a real decline during his presidency. While the child mortality indicators he cited have indeed fallen, this drop predates his administration. Petro only compared two points in time using absolute numbers, ignoring prior trends, a method experts recommend against. There is no clarity regarding the origin of the “10,000 babies saved” figure. Summing reductions across the categories mentioned by Petro overlaps data, making the claim ambiguous. Experts and the Ministry of Health have warned that the improvement cannot be solely attributed to Basic Health Units. For instance, Petro claimed a 71.4% reduction in mortality due to malnutrition among children under one year. However, he did not display a graph for this statistic. Instead, he stated that the rate dropped 71.4% between week 25 of 2022 and the same week in 2026. The National Administrative Department of Statistics (Dane) publishes official death records. Yet, the most recent data, updated March 20—only goes up to 2025 and is preliminary. The entity’s website notes that these figures may change. According to Dane data, the number of deaths among children under one year due to nutritional deficiencies and related anemias fell by 62.6% from 246 cases in 2022 to 92 cases in 2025. The rate per 1,000 births dropped from 0.43 in 2022 to 0.21 in 2025. This decline is not new, it has been ongoing over the past few years, long before Petro’s presidency. In another point, Petro cited a 32.9% decrease in infant mortality between 2022 and 2026, based on data up to week 25. Again, Dane’s latest information only extends to 2025, and it is still preliminary. According to these figures, infant mortality decreased by 34% in terms of case numbers from 2022 to 2025. The rate dropped from 11.7 in 2022 to 10.2 in 2025. However, this trend is not unique to Petro’s term; it has continued over several years. Petro also noted a 34.7% drop in mortality among children under five years old, citing a decline from 3,993 to 2,609 cases between week 25 of 2022 and the same period in 2026. Once more, Dane’s latest data only reaches 2025, and it is still preliminary. Based on these figures, mortality among children under five declined by 35% in case numbers from 2022 to 2025, with the rate falling from 14.5 in 2022 to 12.4 in 2025. As with other metrics, this improvement is not exclusive to Petro’s administration. The final figure Petro presented was a 24.6% reduction in perinatal mortality between 2022 and 2026. These statistics, too, rely on preliminary data and reflect trends that predate his leadership. The lack of clear methodology and the absence of contextual analysis raise questions about the accuracy and intent behind the presentation. While some progress has been made in reducing child mortality, the attribution of these gains to Petro’s policies appears oversimplified and potentially misleading.