MANILA, Sept. 7 (Xinhua) -- The Philippines recorded the highest number of deaths in a single year in 2021 at 879,429, a 43 percent year-on-year increase mainly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a government commission said on Wednesday.

Citing Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) data, the Commission on Population and Development said that "in normal years," the rise in deaths is only at around 1 to 5 percent.

Before the 2021 death statistics, the Philippines recorded the highest number of annual deaths in 2019 at 620,414, with nearly 1,700 cases daily. In 2021, there were over 2,400 deaths every day.

For 2021, the crude death rate, or the ratio of deaths occurring within a year to the mid-year population expressed per 1,000 population, was estimated at 8.02 per 1,000 Filipinos, a sharp rise from the rate of 5.6 per 1,000 in 2020.

"It took 20 years for the crude death rate to go up by 1 per thousand from 2000 when it was 4.8, to 2019 when it climbed to 5.8," said Undersecretary for Population and Development Juan Antonio Perez, the commission's executive director.

Perez added that the last time the Philippines had a high crude death rate was in 1958, at 8.4 per 1,000 population.

Besides COVID-19, Perez said other diseases also claimed more lives, including heart attacks, up by 29.7 percent; cerebrovascular disease or strokes, up by 15.3 percent; diabetes, up by 21 percent; and hypertension, up by 31.5 percent. Enditem

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