COVID-19 becomes leading cause of death around world

On January 1, 2020, the biggest cause behind worldwide deaths was an age-old disease, Malaria. Five months into 2020, the novel coronavirus left behind every other disease to become the top reason behind global fatalities.

According to official statistics obtained from John Hopkins COVID repository, Global Burden of Disease study, and Worldometers populations, the seven percent of annual deaths were listed down.

Apart from COVID-19, there were several other reasons for deaths listed such as Malaria, malnutrition, homicide, Parkinson’s disease, drowning meningitis, alcohol, influenza, maternal mortality, drugs, conflict etc.

On May 24, the study showed that COVID-19 led the graph of deaths by 345,059, leaving behind malaria at 256,795.

According to The News, the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned in April that disruptions to malaria prevention and treatment caused by the coronavirus could see malaria deaths double this year.

The increase alone—estimated at the worst case to be 369,000—would almost equal the current confirmed death toll of COVID-19, said the report.

Global efforts to eradicate malaria have made enormous progress in the last two decades.

“Although the disease still kills 400,000 people each year, over twice as many people died from malaria in 2000 as 2018. Before the coronavirus pandemic, experts saw 2020 as a critical year in sustaining progress against malaria, particularly because the decrease in morbidity and mortality has slowed in recent years. But the COVID-19 pandemic has now raised fears of a return to death tolls unseen for decades,” it read. 

According to a Reuters tally, as of today, the global death toll due to the virus exceeded 472,758 while the number of cases crossed nine million.