Guns blow away road deaths

2004-03-19 11:16

Johannesburg - Firearms cause more deaths than road traffic accidents, the National Injury Mortality Surveillance System (NIMSS) reported on Friday.

The annual study, launched at the Sandton Convention Centre, found that firearms caused 7091 deaths in 2002, making them the leading cause of non-natural death in South Africa once again.

- Burns and drowning were the leading causes for children less than two years old;

- pedestrian collisions were the leading cause for children three to 14 years old; but

- firearms took over as the major cause for all ages from 15-65, of which only 0.5 percent were accidental deaths.

The report showed that men were four times more likely than women to die of non-natural causes.

There were also gender differences in the manner of death.

Women were five times more likely to die of traffic injuries than murder, whereas men were seven times more likely to die of murder than traffic injuries.

The number of murders increased dramatically over weekends.

Results for 2003 were still being collated, said NIMSS researcher Richard Matzopoulos.

He said in the four years the study had been performed the percentage of deaths due to firearms had increased.

The annual NIMSS study, conducted jointly by the University of SA and the Medical Research Council (MRC) aimed to capture the "who, what, when, where and how of fatal injuries" a press release stated.

Reducing fatal injury

The information would be used to improve the prevention and control of injuries in South Africa by evaluating how effective different interventions were in reducing fatal injury in the country.

At present non-natural death accounts for between 12- and 15 percent of all mortality in the country, according to the report.

Other important findings were that 25% of all non-natural deaths were from road traffic collisions, and the greatest proportion of these by far were pedestrians.

Pedestrians who died on the roads were often intoxicated, and more than half of the fatally injured drivers tested positive for alcohol in the blood.

There were 2471 suicides in 2002, most of them caused by hanging.

Professor Mohamed Seedat, director of the crime, violence and injury lead programme, stressed the need for firmer gun control and regulated access to alcohol over weekends and holidays.

He said social development programmes, community policing, and reducing media violence and social inequality were among the many measures that could help to reduce gun-homicide, traffic deaths and other unintentional injuries.

- SAPA