A baby girl born in the City of Manila early Tuesday is among the newborns symbolizing being the 8 billionth person in the world.
The baby, identified as Vinice Mabansag, was born at Dr. Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital at 1:29 a.m. yesterday.
“We just witnessed the world’s 8th billion baby in the Philippines. So we waited around two hours starting 11 p.m. last (Monday) night and the baby was delivered at around 1:29 a.m., normal spontaneous delivery,” said the hospital’s chief medical professional staff, Dr. Romeo Bituin.
Baby Vinice’s mother, Maria Margarette Villorente, said she is happy that her daughter is considered as the world’s “8th billion baby.”
Commission on Population and Development’s (POPCOM) chief administrative officer Lyneth Therese Monsalve said they are hoping that Baby Vinice will be a symbol of development in the future.
“We are looking at particularly the local government units for the possible interventions that they have to give for these babies and the coming other babies for that matter in terms of health, education, then housing when they grow up,” she said.
According to POPCOM, the population in the Philippines is growing slower with a 1.9 fertility rate in 2022, which means a mother gives birth to less than two babies only.
This is lower compared to the 2.7 fertility rate in 2017.
The lower fertility rate is attributed to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the growing knowledge of Filipinos about family planning, according to the report.
In a statement issued earlier in the day, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said: “The milestone is an occasion to celebrate diversity and advancements while considering humanity’s shared responsibility for the planet.” The UN attributes the population growth to human development, with people living longer thanks to improvements in public health, nutrition, personal hygiene and medicine.
But while some worry that eight billion humans is too many for planet Earth, most experts say the bigger problem is the overconsumption of resources by the wealthiest people.
“Some express concerns that our world is overpopulated,” said United Nations Population Fund chief Natalia Kanem. “I am here to say clearly that the sheer number of human lives is not a cause for fear.”
The UN projects the population to continue growing to about 8.5 billion in 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050, and peaking around 10.4 billion in the 2080s.
Other groups have, however, calculated different figures.
The US-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) estimated in a 2020 study that the global population would max out by 2064, without ever reaching 10 billion, and decline to 8.8 billion by 2100.
Since the emergence of the first humans in Africa over two million years ago the world’s population has ballooned, with only fleeting pauses to the increasing number of people sharing Earth.
From the 19th century on, the population began to explode, due largely to the development of modern medicine and the industrialization of agriculture, which boosted global food supplies.
Since 1800, the world’s population has jumped eight-fold, from an estimated one billion to eight billion.
The development of vaccines was key, with the smallpox jab particularly helping zap one of history’s biggest killers.