KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 30 — Transport accidents was the principal cause of death for Malaysians aged 15 to 40 in 2018, according to the Department of Statistics, even as heart disease remains the main cause of death for the general population.

The department’s 2019 Statistics on the Causes of Death for the country released today showed that 20.4 per cent of Malaysian within the 15 to 40 age group had died in transport accidents.

This was, however, a fall from 2017, where 22.5 per cent of those from the same group were killed in transport accidents.

Meanwhile, the top cause of death for those aged 14 and below was pneumonia, which counted for 4.8 per cent of the deaths.

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In comparison, ischaemic heart disease was the top cause of death for all above the age of 40 years.

Deaths involving ischaemic heart disease last year was 18,267 or 15.6 per cent of the deaths, an increase from 13,503 people or 13.9 per cent in 2017.

This trend is consistent across all ethnic groups, although pneumonia is the top cause of death for women.

Earlier this month, Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail said Malaysian women are increasingly affected by heart ailments that are the nation’s number one killer — from 20 per cent in 2014 to 22 per cent in 2017.

On average, 50 Malaysians die of heart disease every day.

On the other hand, transport accidents account for 3.7 per cent total death for Malaysians across all ages.

This is a slight decrease from 2017, which saw 4.6 per cent of total deaths attributed to transport accidents.

This comes as the other three main principal causes of death for Malaysians overall were identified as pneumonia (11.8 per cent), cerebrovascular diseases (7.8 per cent), and chronic lower respiratory diseases (2.6 per cent).