One in three deaths in Italy 'avoidable' (2)

(ANSA) - Brussels, May 24 - Around one in three deaths in Italy could be avoided in Italy with timely and effective health care, according to a report released on Tuesday by EU statistics office Eurostat. Italy was in 11th place in a ranking inside the report with an avoidable-death share of 33% of the 52,098 fatalities of people under 75 in 2013, just below the EU average of 33.7%. The highest shares of avoidable deaths were registered in Romania (49.4%) and Latvia (48.5%), followed by Lithuania (45.4%) and Slovakia (44.6%). The best results were for France (23.8%), Denmark (27.1%), Belgium (27.5%) and the Netherlands (29.1%). The report said that 1.7 million people aged less than 75 died in 2013 and that around 577,500 of those deaths (33.7%) "could be considered as premature, as they could have been avoided in the light of medical knowledge and technology". "Heart attacks (184,800 deaths) and strokes (almost 94,000 deaths) accounted together for almost half (48%) of these total avoidable causes of death of people aged less than 75," it added.