The Local Civil Registry Office reported an increase in the number of deaths during the first quarter of this year at 2.95 percent more than the deaths during the same period last year.
Local Civil Registrar Luz Perez disclosed some 661 deaths were reported in the city during the first quarter of this year which is 2.95 percent higher compared to the 642 deaths that were reported during the same period in 2021.
On the other hand, she revealed some 17 infant deaths were documented in the city during the first quarter of this year, a decrease by 5.56 percent from the total number of infant deaths registered by the said office during the same period last year.
The local civil registrar stipulated that the age group of 60 and above comprised the biggest number of deaths which is around 403 or 60.97 percent of the recorded deaths in the city during the first quarter of this year.
According to her, the civil registration and vital statistics system are systems that produce births, deaths, and causes of death information, which are one of the fundamental strategic importance for the country’s development process and governance.
She explained that this is also the gold standard of health information in the country, especially during the prevailing Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, where vital statistics played a crucial role in accurate and timely decision-making of officials.
Moreover, Perez emphasized that civil registration contributes in many ways to the normal functioning of society because if a country deems it important to improve family organizations in order to guarantee social order, to guarantee human rights, to promote public health and to make available better information on which to base development planning, it should consider improvement of civil registration an important and pressing matter.