Inglis to rejoin Australia Test squad after finger injury

In 2024, nearly one in six deaths in South Africa were attributed to cardiovascular disease, according to Statistics South Africa. This marked the largest contributor to mortality in the country, accounting for 17.8% of all registered deaths. This figure remained consistently high over the past decade, with an average of 17.9% of deaths from 2014 to 2024.

The data revealed that cardiovascular diseases claimed more lives with increasing age, particularly affecting men and women differently. Among men, deaths from cardiovascular disease peaked between the ages of 65 and 69, while among women, the peak occurred in the 80 to 84 age group. Hypertensive and cerebrovascular diseases, including stroke, consistently ranked among the top 10 causes of death in South Africa over the past decade.

Hypertensive diseases accounted for 5.5% of all deaths in 2024, while cerebrovascular diseases accounted for 5.4%. Women were more affected by both conditions, with hypertensive diseases responsible for 7.1% of female deaths and cerebrovascular diseases responsible for 6.4% of female deaths, compared to 4.1% and 4.5% for men respectively.

Interestingly, the leading cardiovascular cause of death varied across different regions of South Africa. Hypertensive diseases were the leading cause in six provinces: Gauteng, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, North West, Free State and Northern Cape. In contrast, cerebrovascular diseases were the leading cause in the coastal provinces of Western Cape, Eastern Cape, and KwaZulu-Natal.