Cardiovascular diseases, including ischemic heart disease, heart failure and strokes, remained the most common cause of death in the Czech Republic last year, according to the data published yesterday by the Czech Statistical Office (CSU) on its website.
Last year, 112,211 people died in the Czech Republic, similar to the year before.
The highest number of people (14,000) succumbed to chronic ischemic heart disease, followed by heart failure (7,300) and vascular diseases of the brain or strokes (5,900). However, the number of people who succumbed to all diseases of the circulatory system combined fell slightly year-on-year.
The most frequently cited cause of death in the long term is coronary heart disease, which can lead to heart attacks. The exception was in 2021, when COVID-19 prevailed, with over 25,500 casualties according to CSU data, compared to just under 22,000 from coronary heart disease, of which 18,000 were due to the chronic form of the disease.
However, the number of patients succumbing to coronary heart disease is declining. Ten years ago, it was listed as the cause of death for almost 26,700 people in the Czech Republic. The number of deaths from COVID-19 fell by more than a half in 2024 to 748.
By contrast, the second most common cause of death, which was again heart failure last year, has almost doubled in the past decade, statisticians say. Doctors attribute the increased incidence of heart failure to the ageing population and better survival rates for heart attacks.
The number of people who have died of strokes, the third most common cause of death, has declined over the past decade, as in the case of coronary heart disease. In 2015, statisticians recorded it as the cause of death of 9,600 Czechs.
According to CSU, the fourth most common cause of death in 2024 was cancer of the bronchus, trachea and lungs, from which almost 5,000 people died, and the fifth was diabetes, with a similar number of deaths. The number of deaths caused by diabetes has increased over the last decade, while in the case of cancer it has slightly decreased.
Statisticians have also published information on the number of suicides. Last year, 1,561 people in the Czech Republic died as a result of deliberate self-harm, an increase of 308 year-on-year. The reason for the increase in the suicide rate is primarily a new update of the data by the Czech Institute of Health Information and Statistics, based on the police data. Some deaths that were listed as accidents or unknown motives in the initial records were later designated as suicides, CSU explained.
“The basic structure of suicides remained unchanged in 2024. There are still more than four male suicides per one female suicide. Men in their forties and fifties have committed the most intentional self-harm (suicides),” said Marketa Safusova from CSU’s demographic statistics department.
