Cancer and diabetes rates have doubled in the Czech Republic since 1989

Prague, Sept 8 (CTK) – The occurrence of cancer and diabetes in the population of the Czech Republic has approximately doubled as against 1989, according to a comparison of the annual reports on health from 1989 and 2017 from the Institute of the Health Information and Statistics (UZIS).

“In advanced countries, the mortality from the ‘civilisation diseases’ was curbed in the past ten to 15 years. By contrast, the curve of their development has been still rising in this country,” experts said in 1990.

By 2017, diseases of heart and blood vessels, constituting almost 292,000 hospitalisations, were the most frequent cause of the stay in hospital.

About 58 percent of people died from a heart and blood vessel disease in 1989 and the proportion still stood at almost one-half by 2016.

However, their treatment improved, since the number of the cases rose.

When it comes to the treatment of heart attacks and stroke, Czech doctors are among the best in the world.

In 1989, diabetes incidence was about 4,460 cases per 100,000 population and it rose to over 8,100 by 2017. At present, the number of diabetes patients is close to one million in the 10.5-million country, experts say.

Like in 1989, cancer is the second most frequent cause of death in the Czech Republic. The number of new cases more than doubled. The growth is partly attributed to better diagnostics.

“With the development of medicine and worsening environment, the incidence of new cases of the disease has been growing by the year,” the statistical yearbook said.

“Compared with 1970, the morbidity of malignant tumours was 31 percent higher for men and 40 percent higher for women by 1988,” it added.

In 1988, there were 410 new cases of cancer per 100,000 population, it was over 900 two years ago.

In 1985, the Czech Republic started watching the number of HIV positive people. There were 140 of them, while AIDS developed among 17 of them. In the subsequent 30 years, the number of the ill surged to over 3,500, with over 300 deaths.

pvr/dr