‘Heart disease death toll worst in Asean’

IN the last 20 years, heart disease has remained the leading cause of death in the world and is still “killing more people than ever before”, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said in its 2019 Global Health Estimates, and the Philippines is the worst in South-East Asia.

About 120 out of every 100,000 Filipinos died of ischemic or coronary heart disease in 2019, up from 103 per 100,000 population in 2015, the worst record in the region that listed the ailment as its top cause of death.