Eurostat: Bulgaria had the highest death rate in the EU in 2020
With 1787 deaths per 100 000 inhabitants, Bulgaria had the highest death rate in the EU in 2020, European Union statistics agency Eurostat said on March 7.
Bulgaria was followed by Romania (1622), Hungary (1513), Lithuania (1482) and Latvia (1445), Eurostat said.
At the opposite end of the scale, the lowest death rate across the EU countries was recorded in France (863 deaths per 100 000 inhabitants) and Ireland (892), ahead of Luxembourg (905), Finland (917) and Spain (919).
In 2020, despite the Covid-19 pandemic, diseases of the circulatory system were the main cause of death in all EU countries, except in Denmark, Ireland, France and the Netherlands, where cancer was the main cause, Eurostat said. These two groups of diseases, remained the leading causes of death and in total, 1.7 million people died of circulatory diseases and almost 1.2 million died from cancer.
Among the EU members, the highest share of deaths due to diseases of the circulatory system was in Bulgaria (61 per cent) and the lowest in France (20 per cent), while the highest share of deaths due to cancer was observed in Ireland (29 per cent) and the lowest share in Bulgaria (15 per cent).
Diseases of the circulatory system and cancers together represented 55 per cent of the causes of death in the EU, ranging from 42 per cent in Belgium and 76 per cent in Bulgaria.
In the year the pandemic broke out, Covid-19 was the third main cause of death in the EU, with a total of almost 439 000 deaths. The highest shares of death due to Covid-19 were registered in Belgium (18 per cent) and Spain (15 per cent), while the lowest were in Finland and Estonia (both one per cent).
(Photo, of the main entrance to Sofia Central Cemetery: Edal Anton Lefterov)
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