Question NW818 to the Minister of Health

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04 June 2020 - NW818

Profile picture: Van Staden, Mr PA

Van Staden, Mr PA to ask the Minister of Health

(1)Whether, in light of the fact that the Portfolio Committee on Health and the South African public in general are only being updated on basic statistics of Covid-19 deaths and all hospitals, clinics and laboratories allegedly signed confidentiality clauses to provide test- and death-related information to the Government only, he will furnish Mr P A van Staden with detailed figures of mortality that are not related to Covid-19 since 1 March 2020; if not, why not; (2) whether he will consider providing such figures to the Portfolio Committee on Health on a monthly basis, until the end of the Covid-19 pandemic in the Republic; if not, why not; (3) whether he will make a statement on this matter?

Reply:

(1) Data on all causes of mortality is collected through death certificates from the Department of Home Affairs. These data are made available to the South African Medical Research Council’s Burden of Disease Unit which has published this data on its website – it is therefore in the public domain and anyone interested in this data can access the data freely. The quote below is from the website for the period 1 January to 12 May 2020 and published on 20 May 2020.

The weekly number of deaths of persons 1+ years of age up till 12 May 2020 are significantly lower than the number that would have been expected based on the historical data, mainly due to the decline in the number of deaths from unnatural causes. The number of deaths from unnatural causes (e.g. road traffic fatalities and homicide) was significantly lower during lockdown than projected on the basis of past trends, but appears to be increasing with the easing of lockdown. • Deaths from natural causes show no unusual sign of increase by 12 May 2020 among people less than 1-59 years nor those 60 years and over, and appear to be tracking consistently below the projected numbers” (Bradshaw et al, 20 May 2020).

(2) The Minister is willing to provide the information obtained from the Department of Home Affairs as noted above, monthly to the Portfolio Committee;

(3) We will make a statement on this matter.

END.

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