Leading Causes of Death in Africa

Africa is the world’s second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. With about 922 million people (as of 2005), it accounts for approximately 14.2 percent of the world’s human population. Even with its abundant natural resources, Africa remains the world’s poorest and most underdeveloped continent, with 36.2 percent of the population living on under $1 per day. A large majority of the people who reside in the African Region are affected by widespread poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition, inadequate water supply and sanitation, as well as poor health.

In this part of the world, 72 percent of all deaths are from communicable diseases compared to 27 percent in all other World Health Organization Regions combined. HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death for adults in the region, with an estimated 60 percent of the people being infected. Between December 2003 and December 2005, the number of HIV-positive people on antiretroviral treatment increased eight-fold, from 100,000 to 810,000.

Malaria is a major public health problem in Africa, where more than 90 percent of the estimated 300-500 million clinical cases of malaria occur. An estimated 74 percent of the population in the African Region lives in areas highly endemic for malaria and 19 percent in epidemic-prone areas. Only 7 percent of the region’s population lives in low-risk or malaria-free zones. While the disease affects the lives of most people across the continent, children and pregnant women are the most vulnerable due to their lower levels of malaria immunity. There are nearly 1 million deaths due to malaria each year, the vast majority among children under the age of five. The most effective anti-malarial treatments available today, artemisinin-based combination therapies, have been adopted by 33 countries as first-line treatment, but as of 2006, only 9 were implementing the treatment policies.

Tuberculosis (TB) was declared a public health emergency in the African Region in 2005. TB has been on the rise in tandem with HIV/AIDS, because people with HIV whose immune systems are weakened easily contract TB and go on to develop active TB. An estimated 2.4 million new cases, 24 percent of all notified cases worldwide, and half a million TB deaths are reported in the African Region each year.

Of the 20 countries with the highest maternal mortality rates, 19 are in Africa. An estimated 231,000 women died in the African Region in 2002 due to pregnancy and childbirth complications. And Africa’s neonatal death rate is the highest in the world. An estimated 43 out of every 1,000 babies born in 2005 died during their first 28 days of life. Deaths among African children have also been on the rise. In 1960, 14 percent of deaths among children under the age of five worldwide occurred in the Region. That proportion rose to 23 percent in 1980 and to 43 percent by 2003.

Noncommunicable diseases, such as heart disease, hypertension, stroke and injuries represented 27 percent of the total burden of disease in the Region in 2001, but are on the rise. Surveys have found a very high prevalence of risk factors for these diseases. By adopting broad prevention plans, African countries could achieve 10 more healthy life years for their citizens.

Another major health problem in countries in the Region is road traffic collisions. For example, road traffic collisions cost the Ugandan economy $101 million (U.S.) each year, which is 2.3 percent of gross national product.

Other leading causes of death in the African Region include lower respiratory infections, diarrheal diseases, violence, whooping cough, and protein-energy malnutrition.

Some good news coming out of the Region is that tropical diseases have seen a drastic reduction in cases. River blindness has been completely eliminated as a public health problem; control efforts have resulted in a 97 percent reduction in guinea worm since 1986; and Leprosy is close to being eliminated, with less than one case per 10,000 people.

Preventable childhood illnesses have also decreased. Measles deaths have declined by more than 50 percent since 1999. In 2005, 75 million children received measles vaccines, and 37 countries were vaccinating 60 percent or more of their children against the disease. And polio has nearly been eradicated in the African Region.