According to the latest official statistics, Hanoi currently boasts the nation's longest life expectancy.
On Christmas Day, government authorities met to review Vietnamese health statistics from 2018. They discussed Hanoi's changing population rate and announced some perhaps surprising news — namely, that Hanoians are expected to live longer than people from anywhere else in the country.
Hanoi's life expectancy rate, the highest in the country, is now estimated to be just over 75, which is 1.6 years higher than the national average, VietnamNet reports. The figure represents a steady rise from 59 in 1972.
Hanoi saw a decline in birth rates in 2018, and the number of families having a third child also declined. Conversely, there was an increase in the number of pregnant women and babies receiving prenatal and newborn screenings, according to the news source.
2018 also saw a shift in Hanoi's gender ratios. In 2017, there were 114 boys per 100 girls. In 2018, reports show 113 boys per 100 girls.
Hanoi Department of Health also announced that the number of dengue fever infections fell nearly 90% compared to the previous year. Although 2,100 people did, however, contract hand-foot-and-mouth disease and there were ten confirmed cases of Japanese encephalitis in the city, with no subsequent fatalities recorded.
