Although South Africa has a well-established Civil Registration and Vital Statistics system, the quality of mortality statistics obtained from the death notification forms completed by medical doctors is still suboptimal.

The WHO provided some recommendations and guidance to countries on ICD coding of COVID-19, which was declared a pandemic in March 2020. This resulted in updates of the Tabular List and the Alphabetical List to include the following new ICD codes for COVID-19. Click here for update 3 & 4 of the guidance and to learn more about the coding of COVID-19 in ICD-10 and ICD-11.

Post COVID-19 codes (25 September 2020)

South African Guideline for Medical Certification of COVID-19 related deaths

Guideline for medical certification of death in the COVID-19 era - SAMJ - 20 July 2020

Download the WHO’s International guidelines for certification and classification (coding) of Covid-19 as cause of death based on ICD (International Statistical Classification of Diseases) (16 April 2020).