Tuberculosis and HIV-related illnesses were the two leading causes of death among young people in 2013, details released by Statistics South Africa have revealed. Of the 77 822 people below the ages of 35 who died in 2013, 10 962 died from TB, 7 890 succumbed to HIV, and “other viral diseases”, which were third on the list, accounted for 4 400 deaths.

Although the number of young people who died decreased from 86 925 in 2012, female deaths contributed the highest to the total during the era of increasing mortality between 1997 and 2005. The figures show that white South African youth, with the highest medical aid coverage at 73.4%, had fewer deaths compared with black and coloured youth who had the lowest medical aid coverage at 8.8% and 18.7% respectively…