{"id":234261,"date":"2018-03-27T16:04:20","date_gmt":"2018-03-27T14:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=234261"},"modified":"2018-03-27T16:04:20","modified_gmt":"2018-03-27T14:04:20","slug":"this-is-what-is-killing-south-africans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/234261\/this-is-what-is-killing-south-africans\/","title":{"rendered":"This is what is killing South Africans"},"content":{"rendered":"

Statistics South Africa has released a report<\/a><\/strong> on the top 10 leading causes of death in South Africa, based on all death notification forms maintained by the Department of Home Affairs.<\/p>\n

The data covered all reported deaths logged in 2016, but also tracks data on deaths occurring during the period 1997 to 2015 to show trends in mortality in South Africa.<\/p>\n

The results on mortality levels and trends indicate that mortality has continued to decline in the country.<\/p>\n

The general trend of registered deaths processed by Stats SA indicated an increase in death occurrences from 1997 to 2006 – when the number of deaths peaked to 614,248 – and a decrease thereafter.<\/p>\n

In 2016, a total of 456,612 deaths occurred, marking a decline of 3.5% from the 473,266 death occurrences for 2015 that have been updated for late registration.<\/p>\n

Overall, mortality now occurs at older ages for both men and women in the country, which is an indication of decline in premature mortality, Stats SA said.<\/p>\n

In 2016, male deaths peaked at age group 60-64 years (8.6%), while female deaths peaked at a much older age group (75\u221279 years \u00a0– 8.3%). Largely, there were more male deaths observed, and the sex ratio at death was 112 male deaths per 100 female deaths, the stats group said.<\/p>\n

Causes of death<\/strong><\/p>\n

Overall, the cause of death in South Africa is largely due to what is categorised as natural causes, which\u00a0account for 88.8% of all deaths that took place in 2016. The other 11.2% of deaths were non-natural causes.<\/p>\n

For the first time since 1997, diseases of the circulatory system were the top ranking underlying main group of natural causes of death.<\/p>\n

Generally, non-communicable diseases accounted for 57.4% of deaths in 2016 while communicable diseases were responsible for 31.3% of deaths in 2016, Stats SA said.<\/p>\n

Tuberculosis maintained its rank as the leading cause of death in South Africa, albeit with declining proportions, while diabetes accounted for 5.5% – up marginally from previous data. These two big killers were followed by other forms of heart disease and cerebrovascular diseases, which both ranked third place at 5.1% each.<\/p>\n

HIV moved up from the sixth position in 2014 and remained as the fifth biggest killer for both 2015 and 2016 deaths.<\/p>\n

\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Cause of death<\/th>\nRank<\/th>\nNumber<\/th>\nPercentage<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Tuberculosis<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n29 513<\/td>\n6.5%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Diabetes mellitus<\/td>\n2<\/td>\n25 255<\/td>\n5.5%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Other forms of heart disease<\/td>\n3<\/td>\n23 515<\/td>\n5.1%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Cerebrovascular disease<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n23 137<\/td>\n5.1%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Human immunodeficiency virus<\/td>\n5<\/td>\n21 830<\/td>\n4.8%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Hypertensive disease<\/td>\n6<\/td>\n19 960<\/td>\n4.4%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Influenza and pneumonia<\/td>\n7<\/td>\n19 638<\/td>\n4.3%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Other viral diseases<\/td>\n8<\/td>\n16 577<\/td>\n3.6%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Ischaemic heart disease<\/td>\n9<\/td>\n12 883<\/td>\n2.8%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Chronic lower respiratory disease<\/td>\n10<\/td>\n12 659<\/td>\n2.8%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Other natural causes<\/em><\/td>\n\u00a0<\/em><\/td>\n200 403<\/em><\/td>\n43.9%<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Non-natural causes<\/em><\/td>\n\u00a0<\/em><\/td>\n51 242<\/em><\/td>\n11.2%<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
All causes<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/td>\n456 612<\/strong><\/td>\n100.0%<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Non-natural causes<\/strong><\/p>\n

When it comes to non-natural causes of death, accidental injury is the biggest killer in this category, accounting for 66.5% of deaths. This is followed by assault (14.8%) and transport accidents (12.5%).<\/p>\n

The ‘other’ category which accounts for the most causes of non-natural deaths here covers quite a broad range of incidents, ranging from falling, and coming into contact with venomous creatures, to things like being a victim of a natural disaster.<\/p>\n

\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Cause of death<\/th>\nNumber<\/th>\nPercentage of non-natural causes<\/th>\nPercentage of all causes<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Other external causes of accidental injury<\/td>\n34 096<\/td>\n66.5%<\/td>\n7.5%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Assault<\/td>\n7 568<\/td>\n14.8%<\/td>\n1.7%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Transport accidents<\/td>\n6 425<\/td>\n12.5%<\/td>\n1.4%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Event of undetermined intent<\/td>\n1 640<\/td>\n3.2%<\/td>\n0.4%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Complications of medical or surgical care<\/td>\n1 001<\/td>\n2.0%<\/td>\n0.2%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Intentional self-harm<\/td>\n425<\/td>\n0.8%<\/td>\n0.1%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Sequelae of external causes of morbidity and mortality<\/td>\n86<\/td>\n0.2%<\/td>\n0.0%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Legal intervention and operations of war<\/td>\n1<\/td>\n0.0%<\/td>\n0.0%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Total<\/strong><\/td>\n51 242<\/td>\n100.0%<\/td>\n11.2%<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

Read:\u00a0Capitec to offer funeral plans from May<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Statistics South Africa has released a report on the top 10 leading causes of death in South Africa, based on all death notification forms maintained by the Department of Home Affairs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":107187,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-234261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234261"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":234297,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234261\/revisions\/234297"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}