Underlying cause of death at medical facilities in Xaiyabouli Province, Lao People’s Democratic Republic

In Lao PDR, Ministry of Health introduced District Health Information Software 2 (DHIS2) in 2013. Although DHIS2 includes cause of death, Lao government did not request to report cause of death through DHIS2, resulting in no information on frequency of underlying cause of death even for the deaths at medical facility. This study aimed to collect the information on the underlying cause of death at all medical facilities in Xaiyabouli province, a rural area in Lao PDR. As well as the point estimate of the proportion, a 95% confidence interval (CI) based on a binomial distribution was calculated for each cause of death. According to the local government request, 226 deaths (128 males and 98 females) in 2019 were reported from all medical facilities in the province. Among them, infectious diseases were the most frequent (33.6%, 95% CI 27.5–40.2%); sepsis (16.8%, 95% CI 12.2–22.3%), pneumonia (8.8%, 95% CI 5.5–13.3%), and meningitis (4.9%, 95% CI 2.5–8.5%). Heart diseases were 15.9% (95% CI 11.4–21.4%) including heart failure and myocardial infarction. Injury was 10.2% (95% CI 6.2–14.4%) including brain injury. Neonatal death was 10.6% (95% CI 6.9–15.4%). Among those, preterm death was common (8.8%, 95% CI 5.3–13.3%). Renal failure was 8.0% (95% CI 4.8–12.3%). According to civil registration covering all deaths both at facilities and outside facilities, deaths at facilities were 16.8% of the whole deaths (1,372 deaths) in Xaiyabouli province. Although deaths outside facilities were not included, this is the first report demonstrating cause of death in one province in Lao PDR.