MANILA – Death due to intentional self-harm increased by a quarter during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) said.
Based on the data released on Wednesday, a total of 3,529 Filipinos died due to suicide from January to December 2020, higher than the 2,808 cases reported in 2019.
The 2020 suicide rate was not only a 26-percent increase from the previous year, but the highest number of intentional self-harm deaths since 2006 when the PSA started collecting suicide data.
“Deaths due to intentional self-harm recorded a 25.7-percent increase from the previous year, making it the 27th leading cause of death in 2020, from rank 31 in 2019,” PSA said in a statement noting that between 2015 and 2020, the average number of deaths due to suicide reached 2, 630 yearly.
Registered deaths due to COVID-19, meanwhile, accounted for 27,967 of the total registered deaths last year, making it the seventh leading cause of death in the Philippines.
The PSA, however, said that 19,800 deaths reported as COVID-19-related were marked as “virus not identified,” an indication that these cases were not reported by the Department of Health (DOH). Around 8, 200 deaths were labeled as “virus identified” by the health department.
There was a 21-percent decline in other causes of external morbidity and mortality in the country. Deaths due to this reached 33,939 in 2020, lower than the 42, 960 recorded in 2019.
Filipinos who died due to transportation accidents went down by 32.36 percent in 2020 at 8,017 while deaths caused by assault also declined by 32 percent with 6,008 cases last year.
Heart diseases remained the top cause of death among Filipinos last year with 99,700 cases, followed by cancer with 62,300 cases, cerebrovascular diseases with 59,700 deaths, and diabetes mellitus with 37,300 cases./PN
