NON-COMMUNICABLE diseases have, according to Statistics South Africa’s (Stats SA) latest Mortality and Causes of Death report, accounted for the largest percentage of deaths in the country since 2019.
Even with significant strides made in improving healthcare in South Africa, the 2020 Mortality and Causes of Death report released on Tuesday, revealed that the number of deaths in the country stood at 489 744.
This, the organisation said, had been the trend for the past 22 years with non-communicable diseases accounting for the largest percentage of deaths, especially since 2019.
During 2020, there were at least 9.3% of deaths of persons aged between 65 and 69, with the lowest deaths recorded for ages 5 to 9 at only 0.5%.
Between 1999 and 2020 there were more male deaths between the ages 0 to 65 up to 69, whereas more female deaths were recorded from the ages of 70 and above.
The median age of death for men was reported as 56.5 years, while for females the age stood at 64 years.
The past five years, 2019 in particular, saw the highest deaths of youth with as many as 186 males and 100 females all between the ages of 20 to 24.
By province, the highest number of deaths was recorded in Gauteng at 22.2%, followed by KwaZulu-Natal with 19.3%, the Eastern Cape came in third place with 15.9%, and the province with the lowest deaths was the Northern Cape at 3.1%.
While the leading cause of death in 2020 was found to have been Covid-19, accounting for 6.7% deaths, it was followed in close second by diabetes mellitus at 6.6% of deaths.
Cerebrovascular diseases accounted for 5.5% of deaths, although with different rankings between the sexes.
For men, the leading underlying causes of death were found to be Covid-19 at 6.4%, diabetes at 5% and tuberculosis at 4.9%.
Diabetes was reported as the leading killer of women at 8.2%, followed by Covid-19 at 7.0% and hypertensive diabetes claiming as many as 6.5%.
Deaths due to non-natural causes were found to be higher in men than women, with that proportion reportedly increasing for men aged between 20 and 24.
Assault 12%, transport accidents 9.7% and an event of undetermined intent 5.5%, were found to be the three leading non-natural causes of deaths in the country, the majority of which were recorded in KwaZulu-Natal, the Western Cape and Gauteng.
The Star
Goitsemang.matlhabe@inl.co.za