Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro fired his health minister after statistics showed infant deaths surging, as elderly protesters angry over medicine shortages planned fresh rallies Friday demanding the socialist leader quit. The health ministry on Wednesday released data showing deaths of infants under the age of one soared by 30 percent in 2016 and deaths of women linked to childbirth by 65 percent.

The government replaced minister Antonieta Caporale on Thursday with Luis Lopez Chejade, the official journal said. Wednesday's data referred to 2016, but Caporale took over as health minister only in January this year. Hospitals and protesters are complaining of severe shortages of medical supplies from an economic crisis that has fueled opposition calls for early elections.

Elected in 2013, Maduro is resisting pressure for an early vote, calling the crisis a US-backed conspiracy. His opponents have branded him a dictator. The ministry's data said 11,466 babies died in 2016, up from 8,812 the year before. The report gave no comparative rate in relation to the number of births. Cases of malaria also rose by 76 percent to more than 240,000, even though the disease was said to have been eradicated in Venezuela.

A collapse in prices for Venezuela's crucial oil exports has left the country short of cash to import medicine and basic goods. Protesters interviewed by AFP over recent weeks have said relatives are suffering and dying due to the lack of medicine.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2017