Ischemic heart diseases, cerebrovascular diseases, and neoplasms remained the top three causes of death in the country from January to September 2021, said the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) in its preliminary report.
"Incidentally, these were also the leading causes of death in the same period in 2020 with some deviations in the ranking," PSA said in a statement on Dec. 18
In the first nine months of 2021, PSA noted that ischemic heart diseases were the leading cause of death with 91,152 cases or 18.5 percent of the total deaths in the country--indicating an increase of about 18.7 percent from the 76,783 deaths or 16.9 percent of the total deaths in the same period of 2020.
Meanwhile, cerebrovascular diseases, which now came in second, accounted for 49,063 deaths (9.9 percent) from being third in the previous year’s ranking.
"It showed an increase of 3.6 percent from the 47,355 cases (10.4 percent share) in the same period in 2020," PSA said.
Moreover, neoplasms, commonly known as "cancer," were the third leading cause which accounted for 42,633 deaths (8.6 percent) of the total.
PSA also noted that coronavirus disease (COVID-19) was the fourth leading cause of death with 34,361 recorded cases (7 percent) from January to September 2021 from 6,042 cases (1.3 percent) in the same period in 2020.
Ranking fifth is death due to diabetes mellitus (32,057 or 6.5 percent), which had an increase of 9.7 percent from the previous year.
10.3% of registered deaths due to COVID-19
"Registered deaths due to COVID-19 accounted for a total of 50,758 deaths or 10.3 percent of the total registered deaths from January to September 2021," PSA said.
It noted that by classification, COVID-19 with the virus identified and COVID-19 virus not identified were both included in the 10 leading causes of death.
"COVID-19 with virus identified was the 4th leading cause of death in the country with 34,361 cases or 7.0 percent of the total deaths in the same period in 2021," it said.
"Meanwhile, registered deaths due to COVID-19 with virus not identified accounted for 16,397 or 3.3 percent of the total deaths from January to September 2021, making it the 8th leading cause of death," it added.
Highest number of COVID-19 deaths recorded in Metro Manila
Among the 17 regions, PSA said that Metro Manila registered the highest number of deaths due to COVID-19 with 14,218 or 28.0 percent of the total COVID-19 deaths from January to September 2021.
CALABARZON (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon) ranked second with 10,386 deaths (20.5 percent), Central Luzon came in third with 9,001 deaths (17.7 percent), while Western Visayas was ranked fourth with 2,753 deaths (5.4 percent).
Meanwhile, the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao had the least number of registered COVID-19 deaths with only 68 cases.
Quezon City registers most COVID-19 deaths in Metro Manila
PSA said that Quezon City reported the highest number of deaths due to COVID-19, with 3,013 deaths or 21.2 percent of the total COVID-19 deaths in the region from January to September 2021.
This was followed by Manila and Pasig City with 2,214 (15.6 percent) and 1,439 (10.1 percent) COVID-19 deaths, respectively.