‘Heart attack deaths fall 35%, cancer 15% from 2018 to 2020'

RTI data, based on death certificates issued by the BMC, show a 35% drop in heart attacks in 2020 in the city compared to 2018 (8,601) and nearly 4% compared to 2019 (5,849). Cancer deaths too dropped by 14%-15% in 2020 (8,576) compared to two pre pandemic years of 2018 (10,073) and 2019 (9,958).

- Sumitra.DebRoy

Dr Avinash Supe, a member of the Covid death audit committee, said a drop in deaths due to communicable diseases and trauma was expected, but heart attack and cancer deaths simply cannot disappear; factors such as certification, deaths at home need to be looked into closely.

Hospitals had seen a decline in cardiac events in the first few months of the pandemic because of a combination of factors and partly due to the fear of coming to hospitals, said cardiologist Dr Brian Pinto. The numbers normalised as everything started to open.

The data showed deaths in Mumbai were up 22.7% in 2020 over the earlier year, and a vast majority of them is attributed—as in the earlier years—to ‘Other Diseases’. That head could include deaths due to septicaemia, bacterial diseases, intestinal infection, blood disorders, encephalitis, and poisoning, among others