HAVANA - Cuba is the country with the highest percentage of people over hundred years, even over Japan, President of the Congress on Satisfactory Longevity, Dr. Eugenio Selman, said here Wednesday.

The ninth edition of the Congress on Satisfactory Longevity opened here Wednesday, attended by 180 delegates and focused this year on analyzing the environmental factors influencing the quality of life of the elderly.

Selman recalled that currently 1,551 people over one hundred years live in Cuba, of a population of 11.2 million which would quintuple the proportion of centenarians in Japan, the country with the largest number of centenarians in absolute terms.

Cuban life expectancy is one of the highest in the region, 78 years for men and 76 to 80 years for women. But local authorities vow to increase the rate to 80 years, according to Deputy Health Minister Luis Struch.

Struch delivered the first lecture meeting of the Congress on the prevention of diseases affecting the elderly on the island, including osteoarthritis, hypertension and diabetes.

Almost two million Cubans are over 60 years old, according to official data and it is estimated that in fifteen years the figure might reach nearly three million, 26 percent of the population.