Community Acquired Pneumonia claims 260 lives in Guimaras in 2018

COMMUNITY Acquired Pneumonia (CAP) was the top leading causes of deaths in Guimaras that claimed 260 lives in 2018.

Based on the registered death certificates recorded through the Decentralized Vital Statistics System, 926 people died last year; the figure was higher by 2.1 percent over its 907 cases in 2017.

Almost 58.0% of deaths in the island province in 2018 were caused by:

1. CAP with 260 cases which accounted 28.1 percent of the total deaths;
2. Hypertensive Cardiovascular Disease with 108 cases (11.7%);
3. Acute Myocardial Infarction, 81 cases (8.7%);
4. Cerebrovascular Disease, 59 cases (6.4%); and
5. Cerebrovascular Accident, 29 cases (3.1%).

Comparative data on the top five leading causes of deaths in 2017 and 2018 indicated that CAP topped the list, accounting for 48.4 percent of the mortalities in 2018.

Hypertensive Cardiovascular Disease, Acute Myocardial Infarction, and Cerebrovascular Disease completed the Top 5 list.

In 2017, Nutritional Deficiency was in the list with 23 deaths but it was replaced by Cerebrovascular Accidents (29 expiries) in 2018.

“It was observed that deaths caused by Hypertensive Cardiovascular Diseases notably increased by more than five times, from 21 cases in 2017 to 108 cases in 2018, Community Acquired Pneumonia increased by almost seventy percent (69.9%), Cerebrovascular Disease by 3.5 percent increment while Acute Myocardial Infarction decreased by 15.6 percent,” explained Nelida B. Losare, Provincial Statistics Officer (PSA)- Guimaras.

“The annual data on death is important especially to the local health planners where they could anchor their plans and programs in crafting policies to lessen cases of deaths caused by the top killer diseases,” Losare added.