Life expectancy up, infant mortality down in Brazil

Life expectancy in Brazil increased, while infant mortality levels witnessed a significant drop in the past decade, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) said here on Thursday. IBGE said that Brazilian people's life expectancy was 74.08 years (74 years and 29 days) in 2011, up from 73.76 years (73 years and 271 days) in 2000. Men's life expectancy increased a bit more than women's, but remained seven years less. In 2000, males in Brazil had a mean lifetime of 70.2 years, which rose to 70.6 years in 2011, while female' life expectancy increased less, growing from 77.4 to 77.7 years in the same period. Infant mortality in the country showed a significant drop from 3.01 percent in 2000 to 1.61 percent in 2011. The mortality of children aged one to five also fell from 3.66 percent to 1.87 percent within the decade. Based on the latest census, the IBGE data indicates the type of sewage disposal is of fundamental important to levels of infant and child mortality. In the households access to a comprehensive sanitation system, the mortality of infant and children aged one to five is of 1.46 percent and 1.68 percent respectively. In the households use ditches as their sewage disposal access, the numbers jumped to 2.1 percent and 2.48 percent, respectively. Meanwhile, only 69.4 percent of Brazilian homes enjoyed water and sewage systems. The IBGE added that Brazil has achieved the UN Millennium Goals five years ahead of schedule on reducing the infant mortality to 1.99 percent by 2015, as the country's proportion fell to 1.94 percent in 2010.