PANAJI
Goa has seen a steady increase in annual deaths due to cancer over the last 10 years and official data shows its rate of increase in mortality has been the steepest, even higher than that of heart attacks and heart diseases but lower than diabetes.
While cancer deaths in Goa rose by 56.61 per cent in the last 10 years, the number of deaths linked to diabetes shot up by a whopping 125.70 per cent in the same period.
Lifestyle-related diseases have been on the rise in the last few years and health officials have expressed concern with incidence of diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer, heart disease and obesity among the Goan population.
Of the total deaths in the State annually, the number of deaths due to heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and chronic liver disease is the most, according to data compiled by the Goa government's Department of Planning and Statistics.
According to the data, 11,074 people died of various types of cancer in the State in the 2015-24 period averaging 1,107 cancer deaths per year or 3 people dying of cancer everyday.
In 2014, 915 people fell victim to the dreaded disease and this figure rose to 1,433 last year (2024), the highest number of deaths due to cancer in any single year in the last 10 years.
Meanwhile, the data reveals that diabetes ranks second after cancer as the leading cause of deaths. The official statistics lists 10,092 deaths linked to diabetes mellitus in the State in this 2015-24 period, averaging over two deaths per day.
Last year (2024), diabetes was identified as the cause of the death of 1,282 people, slightly lower than in 2023 when 1,494 fell victim.
Meanwhile chronic liver diseases and cirrhosis have also come to haunt Goans, claiming the lives of 8,852 people in these ten years (2015-24) – approximately two deaths daily.
Liver diseases and cirrhosis caused 856 people to die in 2015 which shot up to 1,193 deaths last year (2024), recording an approximately 39 per cent increase.
