During the July 20 speech, President Gustavo Petro referred to various indicators of his health administration. While the president spoke of morbidity and mortality in children under 5 years, According to experts there are some figures that do not finish quadrar.
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Specifically, in his speech at the Congress of the Republic, the Head of State stressed that childhood mortality, that is, children under 5 years, It had been reduced to 5,833 deaths in 2024, when in 2023 there were 7,056 deaths and in 2022 of 8,660.
Likewise, he insisted that much of the deaths of minors in the country are due to the lack of drinking water in some of the territories nationwide. “In three years we managed to save the lives of thousands of babies who had died if we had not made the reforms, if we had not dared to govern, because we had to bet for the first time in history to a possibility of transformation”He said.
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However, one of the questions about President Petro’s figures on health, is due to the way in which they were presented and also on how they were used for discussion about changes in the Colombian health system.
According to Augusto Galán, director of the Thought Center Thus we are in health and former minister of the portfolio, the figures presented by President Petro in the Congress of the Republic on the issue of health are “”insufficient and inaccurateS, “he said.
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The Head of State stressed that childhood mortality, that is, children under 5 years, had been reduced to 5,833 deaths in 2024
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According to Galán, Infant and mortality mortality indicators in children under 5 for malnutrition change slowly and require long serial analysis. “One cannot technically present a targeting in two or three years in an indicator that has its changes very slowly, without having previously presented the traceability of that data.”
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The former minister said that the historical trajectory shows a decrease that precedes the current government. “When one sees the traceability in the last 20 years of that indicator, what shows is a decrease sustained with ups and downs. That descent did not appear two years ago, that is a decrease that has been coming for 20 years and the only thing President Petro can say about it is that he has achieved a decrease similar to what other presidents or other governments have achieved“
Galán also warned about the preliminary nature of recent information. He indicated that particularly the figures presented from 2024 and 2025 are preliminary figures. In that sense, the former official, stressed that in the Government graphs the 2024 and 2025 years appear with an asterisk referenced by the DANE to point out that the data is not final.
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Acute respiratory infection and acute diarrheic disease in children, differ from malnutrition mortality.
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“You have to wait in time, even one more year before having the final figure.” For Galán, omit that methodological clarification “It is to create a bias in the information that is not adequate. Public health is very complex, it has many indicators and being able to evaluate it, by a single indicator, it can be interpreted as something global of a much broader result“
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From another point of view, Galán referred to acute respiratory infection and acute diarrheic disease in child population, whose behaviors differ from malnutrition mortality. “Malnutrition mortality in children is the one that causes less deaths than other public health conditions such as acute respiratory infection or acute diarrheic disease“, said.
Galán said that child malnutrition is determined by factors external to the health system. He mentioned access to drinking water, homes and food security as variables that affect nutritional status. “That does not depend on any of those three aspects of the health system. Pretending to change a health system for a result of these of malnutrition, it is at least to divert reality, not to present it clearly“
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Child malnutrition is determined by factors external to the health system.
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The former minister closed with a warning about the management of evidence. “When the data twists, the truth is lost.” He pointed out that the observations apply to both the presidential speech of July 15 and to the presentation of July 20 at the Capitol.
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In his opinion, the debate on performance and reform must rely on complete series, refined data and intersectoral context to avoid conclusions without livelihood. The director reiterated that Comparisons between governments should be made with homogeneous periods, purification of vital records and independent technical verification.
Diana K. Rodríguez T.
Portfolio journalist
