[Is it possible to improve the death registries in Mexico?]

Regarding death registries, Mexico has more than one hundred years of experience. However, to date we have been unable to solve the problem of filling out correctly infant and maternal death certificates. The need to have a comprehensive death registry system as described in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) led the Health Information Office at the Ministry of Health, in 2002, to initiate an "intentional search of maternal and infant deaths" at the national level in order to decrease the problems associated with misclassification of deaths. According to the estimates put forth by international agencies that do follow-up on the MDGs, after four years of work, this study reports a 20% improvement in the number of infant deaths registered and 36% of maternal deaths. The advances achieved through the intentional search allowed us to conclude than at least a significant aspect related to the improvement of death registries was completed. But we still have an important task before us. Fortunately, as a consequence of this study, next steps have been clearly defined and improvements will be achieved in the short term.