AS the Philippines struggles to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, data from the National Statistics Office (NSO) showed that there were more than 30,000 infants and children below five years old who died in 2009.

One of the main goals of the MDGs is to reduce by two-thirds the under-five mortality between 1990 and 2015. The latest data from the government showed that the country only has a medium probability of attaining this goal.

The NSO said there were 31,496 deaths among children below five. The bulk of which was the 21,659 infant deaths that occurred in 2009. The remaining, or 9,837 deaths, occurred among children one to four years old.

The number of infant deaths represented 4.5 percent of all deaths in the country, while the deaths among children aged one to four accounted for only 2 percent of total deaths. In 2009 total deaths in the country reached 480,820 deaths.

“Deaths among infants are more than twice the number of deaths in ages one to four. More males died among infant that females resulting to a sex ratio of 137 males per 100 females,” the NSO said.

The NSO added that the lowest number of deaths occurred at age group 10 to 14 years old with 4,892, or 1 percent of the total.  From age group 80 and over, the number of deaths continuously increased and drops at age group 75 to 79 but increases at age 80 and over.

This data showed that the median age at death of Filipinos was 62.7 years old. For the males it was 59.6 years old, while it was 67.9 years old for the females.

The NSO added that two-thirds of the total deaths reported in the country are not medically attended. This means that out of the 480,820 total deaths in the country, around 322,612 deaths, or 67.1 of the total, were not medically attended.

Data also showed that one out of five deaths, or 100,908 deaths, are caused by heart disease which easily accounted for 21 percent of total deaths in 2009.

The other top Filipino killers are cerebrovascular diseases, which accounted for 11.8 percent or 56,670 of the total, while cancer accounted for 47,732, or 9.9 percent of total deaths in 2009.

“About three-fourths—356,062 or 74.1 percent—of the total deaths was attributed by the top 10 leading causes of deaths,” the NSO said.

It noted that the data on deaths were obtained from the Certificates of Deaths or Municipal Form 103, which were transmitted by the City-Municipal Civil Registrars all throughout the country to the NSO. Statistics include only those deaths which occurred in 2009 and were registered from January 2009 to March 2010.

Deaths that were registered after March 2010 and those that were not registered at all were not included. Further, no adjustments for underregistration were made in the analysis.