27 Jul 2022

Although people give birth to more boys than girls, it is females who continue to dominate the population.

This is mainly due to the fact that males ratio at death is higher than that of females, according to Statistics Botswana death statistics report for the year 2020, released this month.

“Even though the sex ratio at birth indicates that there are more males than females born every year, the sex ratio at death shows higher male deaths than females,” the report said.

It further stated that there were 6 224 male deaths compared to 5 995 female death for the year under review. The recorded deaths were a decrease from 6368 females death and 6 819 male death in 2019.

Overall, there were a total of 12 219 deaths registered in 2020, a 966 decrease from the previous year.

The report, however, noted that 2020 was the year in which the first discovery of COVID-19 was detected and it spread.

“Botswana like many other countries put in place restrictions and protocols to curb the spread of the virus such as movement restrictions, which included curfew and lockdowns, wearing of masks, frequent washing or sanitising of hands,” it says.

All these, according to the report, had positively improved the health of the population and minimised the occurrence of morbidity resulting in deaths, hence the country experienced few COVID-19 deaths during the year 2020.

Furthermore, the report stated that from the years 2011 to 2020 when distributing death by age and sex, the proportion of male deaths was higher than that of females.

It was only at ages 75 and above that there were more female deaths, something that the report attributed to the possibility of higher number of females within that age category.

The report also said the age group between 10 years to 14 years recorded the lowest percentage of deaths for both males and females.

Of all deaths registered in 2020, about 92 per cent were registered on time, which is within a 30-day period, while eight per cent were registered within a year.

In addition, from all of the 2020 deaths recorded by the Departments of Civil and National Registration, 51.3 per cent occurred in health facilities, says the report. ENDS