{"id":836263,"date":"2025-09-07T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=836263"},"modified":"2025-09-07T10:04:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T08:04:14","slug":"these-are-the-biggest-killers-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/836263\/these-are-the-biggest-killers-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"These are the biggest killers in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Stats SA has published the latest cause of death data for South Africa, showing that diabetes and heart disease are the biggest killers in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The data, which reflects the reported and assessed causes of death for 2022, represents the tail-end of the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As such, the impact of Covid-19 is less pronounced in the data, particularly when compared to the 2020 and 2021’s data where the virus accounted for up 15% of recorded deaths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taking wider view of the trend, 2022 represented a ‘normalisation’ of deaths in the country, where around 480,000 deaths were being recorded before the pandemic hit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the data, a total of 486,041 deaths were recorded in 2022, down significantly from 620,394 recorded in 2021 and 515,891 in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When looking at the causes of death, the data is split into two categories: natural deaths and unnatural deaths, which are split further into their respective areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2022, South Africa recorded 421,466 natural deaths and 64,575 unnatural deaths. Notably, the number of unnatural deaths is a record high for the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stats SA noted that when recording cause of death, there are sometimes more than one contributing factor, however this is in a minority of cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most (53.6%) cases only have one cause of death, while about a quarter (23.3%) have two and 14.6% have three. On the vast minority side, 8% have four or more causes, and 0.5% have no cause listed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Typically, a medical practitioner will determine the primary cause, which is described in a very general way, but then is split into more specific causes when considering them in context of the standardised Global Burden of Disease study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is an all-inclusive program of disease burden that assesses mortality and disability from major diseases, injuries, and risk factors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s a standardised look at deaths that provides a comprehensive picture of mortality and disability across various metrics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The biggest killers in South Africa<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Looking at the biggest killers in South Africa, diabetes continues to be the biggest natural cause of death, with 32,863 deaths attributed to it in 2022 (6.8% of the total).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, this is quickly being hounded by hypertension, which led to 31,230 deaths that year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cerebrovascular diseases, which present as a stroke, are third, followed by HIV. Other forms of heart disease are also prolific, while tuberculosis rounds out the top five.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Covid, which was attributed to over 130,000 deaths in 2020 and 2021 was not represented directly in the data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The table below outlines the 10 biggest natural killers in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cause of death<\/th>Number<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
Diabetes mellitus<\/td>32,863<\/td><\/tr>
Hypertensive diseases<\/td>31,230<\/td><\/tr>
Cerebrovascular diseases<\/td>28,819<\/td><\/tr>
Human immunodeficiency virus<\/td>20,784<\/td><\/tr>
Other forms of heart disease<\/td>20,375<\/td><\/tr>
Tuberculosis<\/td>20,372<\/td><\/tr>
Influenza and pneumonia<\/td>19,705<\/td><\/tr>
Other viral diseases<\/td>13,139<\/td><\/tr>
Ischaemic heart diseases<\/td>13,137<\/td><\/tr>
Chronic lower respiratory diseases<\/td>11,838<\/td><\/tr>
Other natural causes<\/em><\/td>209,204<\/em><\/td><\/tr>
Total<\/strong><\/td>421,466<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Natural causes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Looking at the 64,575 unnatural deaths, these are largely attributed to “accidental” deaths, where 49,845 people died from “other external causes of accidental injury”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, this category is incredibly broad and doesn’t quite give the whole story. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this category, “accidental exposure to other and unspecified factors” is the leading cause of unnatural death. This is the category that describes death as a result of an unknown or unspecified factor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second-biggest cause is “exposure to inanimate mechanical forces”. Crucially, this group includes discharge from other and unspecified firearms as well as contact with knife or sword<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The third most common cause was other accidental threats to breathing, which includes accidental hanging and strangulation<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So while the broader category positions these as “accidents”, the generalision belies the often violent causes of death being recorded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The table below outlines the 10 biggest unnatural killers in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unnatural causes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Cause of death<\/th>Number<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
Accidental injury: Unspecified factors<\/td>23,568<\/td><\/tr>
Accidental injury: Inanimate mechanical forces<\/td>12,018<\/td><\/tr>
Assault<\/td>5,816<\/td><\/tr>
Accidental injury: Threats to breathing<\/td>5,769<\/td><\/tr>
Transport accidents<\/td>4,590<\/td><\/tr>
Accidental injury: Smoke, fire and flames<\/td>2,786<\/td><\/tr>
Accidental injury: Poisoning<\/td>2,547<\/td><\/tr>
Event of undetermined intent<\/td>1,986<\/td><\/tr>
Accidental injury: Drowning<\/td>1,971<\/td><\/tr>
Complications of medical and surgical care<\/td>1,886<\/td><\/tr>
Other unnatural causes<\/em><\/td>1,638<\/em><\/td><\/tr>
Total<\/strong><\/td>64,575<\/strong><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stats SA has published the latest cause of death data for South Africa, showing the biggest natural and unnatural killers in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":836984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[3296,1809],"class_list":["post-836263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-death","tag-stats-sa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836263","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=836263"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":836983,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/836263\/revisions\/836983"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/836984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=836263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=836263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=836263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}