Cardiovascular disease leading cause of death

CEBU, Philippines - The Cebu City Health Department (CHD) has identified cardiovascular disease as the leading cause of death in the city last year.

 In a press briefing yesterday, OIC CHD head Daisy Villa said they recorded a total of 3,937 deaths in 2013, with cardiovascular disease accounting for 984 death; pneumonia, 877; injury/trauma/wounds, 381; pulmonary TB, 170; medico-legal cases, 138; decubitus ulcers, 87; diarrhea and diabetes mellitus (64 each), bleeding peptic ulcer (59); premature birth, 58.

Villa cited unhealthy lifestyle and failure to maintain medication while already having the said diseases as contributing to those deaths.

“Lifestyle sa pagkaon, exercise, inom, smoke, ug uban pa,” she said.

She further said that for infants, pneumonia was the leading cause of death with 57 cases, followed by premature birth (36), sepsis (34), and diarrhea (21).

Villa said cardiovascular disease is preventable, requiring proper diet, constant medical check-up, monitoring, and refraining from eating salty foods.

In terms of morbidity, or prevalence of a disease, upper respiratory tract infection was the highest with 8,934 cases, hypertension (2,944), injury/trauma/wounds (1,764), animal bites (1,621), pneumonia (1,414), skin diseases (852), systemic viral infections (567), diarrhea (515), urinary tract infection (266) and musculoskeletal disease (233).

Surveillance in all private and public hospital in the city, though, showed that the top three diseases attended to were pneumonia (3,675), diarrhea (2,623) and dengue (2,366).

Meanwhile, Villa said the Cebu City Health has been identified as a pilot satellite HIV treatment hub in the country.

Villa said they are currently attending to 28 HIV positive individuals aside from 12 HIV positive inmates through anti-retroviral treatment as part of their “harm risk reduction” project. (FREEMAN)