A considerable burden of disease in South Africa is from non-communicable diseases, and concern remains with the proportion of deaths associated with diabetes mellitus, particularly in females.
Statistician-general Risenga Maluleke released the 2016Mortality and Causes of Death in South Africa report last week. Thereport provides an overview of what South Africans die from, and highlights variations by age, sex and geographic location.
There were 456,612 deaths recorded in 2016, 52.7 percent of whom were females, with 47.3 percent being male. Most deaths occurred in Gauteng, followed by KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape.
88.8 percent deaths that took place in 2016 were due to natural causes, and 11.2 percent were attributed to non-natural causes.
The top five natural causes
1. Tubercolosis
2. Diabetes
3. Various forms of heart disease e.g. pericarditis‚ endocarditis‚ pulmonary valve disorders‚ cardiac arrest‚ atrial fibrillation
4. Cerebrovascular diseases
5. HIV
The top five unnatural causes
1. Other external causes of accidental injury
2. Assault
3. Transport accidents
4. Event of undermined intent
5. Complications of medical and surgical care
Notably, in 2016 the total number of deaths is a 3.5 percent decline on the 473,266 occurrences in 2015.