Violence and transport-related deaths are still the major causes of non-natural deaths in the country, a report on the National Injury Mortality Surveillance System indicated on Wednesday.
Launching the 2007 report, project leader Ashley van Niekerk from the Medical Research Council and University of South Africa said that of the 33 513 fatal injuries registered at 39 mortuaries in seven provinces, violence accounted for 36% and transport-related deaths for 32%.
He said that the violence-related deaths appeared to have decreased while those related to transport were considered problematic.
”What is becoming distinctly problematic as well is the steady increase of traffic fatalities.”
He said some of this could be understood by the vast number of cars on the road and infrastructure that struggled to cope with this.
”This is likely to escalate to such an extent that by 2010 we’re going to have really bad problems.”
Van Niekerk said that men, especially those aged between 24 and 44, ”by far” made up the greatest proportion of victims of a violent event, and to a lesser extent traffic events.
The ratio of male to female for violence-related deaths recorded by the mortuaries was seven to one.
The City of Cape Town recorded the highest number of homicides while the major cause of death in Johannesburg was homicide and traffic.
From the data, Pretoria appeared to be the safest metropolis of the four surveyed. However, it recorded the highest incidents of suicide.
”By far the city that has shown the most promise with respect to coming to terms with its problem is Pretoria, Tshwane.
”The City of Cape Town is doing a lot but clearly more needs to be done,” he said.
Of the other non-natural deaths recorded, unintentional deaths accounted for 13% and suicide for 10%. Nine percent were undetermined.
The majority of deaths occurred among African and Coloured, men with the leading manner of death resulting in injuries from sharp object related violence.
Just about two in five of all violent-related deaths were inflicted by sharp objects. Most of the deaths occurred in and around the home.
For women, pedestrian injuries were the highest cause recorded. Pedestrian deaths also accounted for the largest number of transport-related fatalities.
Van Niekerk said the three greatest manners of death for children under the age of 14 were pedestrian fatalities, drowning and burning.
For very young children — from birth to four — burns from fire-related incidents were the major cause of death but from aged five to fourteen, pedestrian deaths were the highest recorded followed by drowning.
”It [drowning] is most likely to become very prominent now in the summer months.”
He said that while there had been a number of ”alarm bells” raised over children being fatal victims of violence, the problem was still ”fairly small”.
”After the age 14 it becomes bigger. Children [under the age of 14] are more likely to die as a result of injury sustained due to what is called accidents or unintentional circumstances.” — Sapa