Question NW741 to the Minister of Health

Reply:

(a) The racial distribution of deceased patients is known only for those patients for whom a case investigation form was submitted to the NICD. The racial breakdown is shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Race distribution where available of persons with lab-confirmed listeriosis, who were reported to have died (1 Jan 2017-20 March 2018)

Race	Died	% of deaths	Total cases recorded
BLACK	62	34	261
COLOURED	8	4	21
UNKNOWN	109	59	675
WHITE	6	3	26
ASIAN	0	0	0
Total	185	100	983

(b) The age distribution of deceased patients is shown in Table 2.

Table 2. Age (where reported) of all laboratory-confirmed listeriosis cases who have been reported dead at the end of hospitalisation "1 January 2017 - 20 March 2018".

Outcome	Died	%
≤28 days	78	42.2
1 months - 14 years	7	4.0
15 - 49 years	47	25.4
50 - 64 years	24	13.0
≥65 years	26	14.1
Unknown	3*	1.1
Total	185	100

*3 patients with lab-confirmed listeria had no age reported on lab investigation form, and a case investigation form was not completed.

(c) I am not able to release residential addresses of people who died in our hospitals from any cause, through a parliamentary question. This needs a legal process.

END.