One person dies of cancer every 13 minutes in Taiwan, making it the leading cause of death in the country, the Department of Health said yesterday.
Of the 144,709 people who died last year, about 28 percent (41,046) died of malignant tumors, down 0.7 percentage points compared with the previous year, Bureau of Health Promotion Deputy Director-General Kung Hsien-lan (孔憲蘭) said.
To be more precise, every 12 minutes and 48 seconds, one person dies of cancer, which topped the list of major causes of death again this year, followed by heart disease (10.8 percent), cerebrovascular disease (7 percent), pneumonia (6.2 percent), diabetes (5.7 percent), accidents (4.6 percent), chronic respiratory disease (3.6 percent), chronic liver disease and cirrhosis (3.4 percent), hypertensive disease (2.9 percent) and nephritis, nephritic syndrome and nephrosis (2.8 percent).
Suicide, which accounted for 2.9 percent of deaths in 2009, was edged out of the Top 10 list last year, moving down one ranking to 11th — the first time since 1997 that suicide was not on the Top 10 list, the department said.
Last year was the 29th straight year that cancer was the leading cause of death nationwide.
With 20 percent of deaths caused by cancer, lung cancer was the most prevalent type, followed by liver cancer (19 percent), colorectal cancer (11 percent), breast cancer in women (4 percent), oral cancer (6 percent), stomach cancer (5.5 percent), prostate cancer (2.5 percent), esophageal cancer (3.8 percent), pancreatic cancer (3.6 percent) and cervical cancer (1.7 percent).
It was worth noting that fewer people died from stomach cancer than oral cancer, Kung said. For about a quarter of a century there has been a downward trend in stomach cancer mortality rates, probably because people are eating more fresh food, she said.
However, the rise in oral cancers could be the result of an increase in the consumption of alcohol, tobacco and betel nuts, Kung said.
The survey also showed that on average, life expectancy for men was 76.2 years while that for women was 82.7 years.
Life expectancy for men and women the previous year had been 76.1 and 82.4 years respectively.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching