European countries recorded more than 10,000 excess deaths during the heatwave at the end of June, raising serious concerns about the effects of extreme heat on the human body.

According to data published by EuroMOMO, which is supported by the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control and the World Health Organization, the overwhelming majority of the victims – more than 9,000 – were people aged 65 and over.

“It is unusual to see this kind of excess mortality at this time of year. It is a genuinely high figure,” Lasse Vestergaard, chief medical officer at Denmark’s Statens Serum Institut, which hosts EuroMOMO, told Reuters.

“It is difficult to explain this high mortality by anything other than the extreme heat,” he said, adding that 10,650 excess deaths had been recorded.

The figures, collected by agencies monitoring mortality rates in 27 European countries, refer to deaths from all possible causes, not only those directly related to heat. They cover the period from June 22 to June 28, when the heatwave broke temperature records in France, Spain, the United Kingdom and other countries.

Scientists clarified that there were no indications of other factors, such as COVID-19 infections, that could have contributed to the increase in excess deaths.

Average excess mortality across European countries during the previous eight weeks stood at approximately 500 deaths per week.

France and Belgium were the only two European countries to record “very high excess mortality” during the final week of June.

Mortality in Belgium was the highest recorded during any heatwave since 2000, according to the country’s public health institute, Sciensano.

Another study, published on Monday, July 13, estimated that 2,700 people died as a result of extreme heat in England and Wales.

According to findings from Imperial College London, the UK Met Office and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, 42% of these deaths were caused by the heatwave.

Source: cnn.gr