Excessive heat leaves six dead in the Region of Murcia among the elderly population | La Verdad

Days of suffocation in the street with temperatures of up to 44.2 degrees, as those recorded last Thursday afternoon in Alhama de Murcia. Heat waves have found their way into the second half of July and have extended their stay into the first days of August in the Region of Murcia. Like any extreme weather event, the intense heat has had its consequences for the population. The Daily Mortality Monitoring System (MoMo) of the Carlos III Health Institute of Madrid attributes the deaths of six people in the Community since the beginning of summer to these high temperatures, out of a total of 1,212 deaths. In all of Spain, that figure rises to 780 deaths.

This system for monitoring the effects of high temperatures quantifies that, of those six people who have lost their lives in the last month and a half due to heat, the majority (five) were women and one man. The last three weeks of July were the period in which these deaths occurred. If we compare the periods with the data at a national level, the last week, from July 22 to 28, has been the hardest, with 337 deaths attributable to this cause, according to the estimates of the aforementioned organization. The last days of July (from July 29 to 31) also do not show a negligible figure, with 246 cases.

As the month progressed, mortality estimates increased. In total, 32,582 deaths were reported in July, with an excess of 824 deaths from “all causes” over the average, and of these, the 771 mentioned were “attributable to temperature”, according to the screening carried out by the system. A more detailed reading of the estimates reveals who are, by far, the most vulnerable people to excessive heat. The elderly, inevitably, due to their fragile condition. The victims of heat over 85 years of age were more than half a thousand, 66% of the total. In the Region, for example, the deaths recorded were of elderly people over 65 years of age and, in fact, two were over 85 years old. In July of last year, the statistics revealed five deaths, one less than now.

Age, heat and fragility

This reality requires extreme care for the elderly, whether in private homes or in institutions. And understanding how heat is an accelerator of poor health states helps in this task. María Herrera Abian, head of the Palliative Care department at Quironsalud hospitals and professor of Geriatrics and Humanities at the Francisco de Vitoria University, explains that the origin of the physical deterioration of these people is none other than dehydration caused by the excess heat itself.

With age, one of the abilities that people lose is the ability to feel thirsty. “They forget that they have to drink water and reminding them and offering them liquid is a constant task that must be carried out by the people who care for them, whether they are children at home or professionals in nursing homes, because they become dehydrated easily,” says the specialist. When we talk globally about the dangers of intense and frequent heat waves – the World Health Organization (WHO) classifies them as the main cause of climate-related mortality – ‘a priori’ it may seem difficult to relate a temperature spike as a direct cause of death. But nothing could be further from the truth. The mechanism is, in reality, simple.

The body’s inability to compensate for its core temperature and dissipate excess heat sometimes also leads to a harmful inflammatory response. “The overload that the body is subjected to when trying to cool itself also affects the heart and kidneys,” explains Dr. María Andrea Castillo, from the Sanitas Reina Victoria centre in Madrid. None of this series of deteriorations that can ultimately end in death has anything to do with heat stroke itself. This kind of collapse that the body reaches when exposed to high temperatures is sometimes related to the sole danger of exposure in summer, but these cases are less common. The real risk posed by heat is more subtle, she explains.

90 deaths since 2015

Murcia is the third community with the fewest deaths from this cause in July, along with the Canary Islands, which also has six deaths caused by excessive heat. However, since the first records of the MoMo system in 2015, the Community has accumulated 90 of these deaths in almost ten years, 74 of them women. So far this year, the Region has recorded 20 deaths, the second highest annual figure in the Community with five months to go before the end of 2024. Last year was the year with the most deaths from high temperatures, with 28 deaths and almost all in summer.

However, in 2024, the Carlos III Health Institute has also attributed up to 13 deaths to low temperatures between January and February.

By autonomous communities, the territory with the most deaths in July was Madrid, with 208, which surpasses Castilla y León (96) and Castilla-La Mancha (75). It is followed by Catalonia (73), Andalusia (69), Galicia (61), Aragon (55), Valencian Community (45), Extremadura (30), La Rioja (12), Navarra (11), Asturias (10), Basque Country (7), Region of Murcia and the Canary Islands (6), Balearic Islands (4) and Cantabria (1). Ceuta has recorded one death due to excessive heat and Melilla none.

The Department of Health highlights in its analysis of the statistics from the MoMo system of the Carlos III Health Institute that the Region of Murcia has recorded only 1.13% of these deaths attributable to excessive temperatures this summer, out of a total of 1,758 deaths in all of Spain. “Since January 1, 2024, more than 7,000 deaths from different causes have been identified in the Region of Murcia, 20 of them deaths attributable to temperature (whether heat or cold), 6 of them in July,” sources from this department add.

They do point out, however, that there have been no deaths from heat stroke this summer in the Community and that this cause of death cannot be compared with the statistics of deaths attributable to temperatures, since they are two different concepts. “A heat stroke occurs when the body temperature reaches 39 degrees in its internal organs, and this can cause shock and death. The study by the Carlos III Institute refers to causes of death attributable to heat. For example, it can affect people with previous pathologies.”

This Friday, health authorities, within the framework of the National Plan for Preventive Actions against the Effects of Excessive Temperatures on Health, warned that the risk of heat was low in the Region of Murcia. Maximum temperatures of 40 degrees were reached in Calasparra, slightly less than in the central days of this week.

For all these reasons, the Ministry of Health recalled, after reporting on the data from the MoMo system, that exposure to high ambient temperatures can cause an insufficient response from the human thermoregulatory system. Furthermore, excessive heat can alter vital functions if the human body is not able to compensate for variations in body temperature.

He also stressed that very high temperatures cause a loss of water and electrolytes that are necessary for the normal functioning of the various organs. Thus, in some people with certain chronic diseases, undergoing certain medical treatments and/or with disabilities that limit their autonomy, these thermoregulation mechanisms can become unbalanced more easily.

From a biological perspective, exposure to excessive temperatures can cause health problems such as cramps, dehydration, heat stroke or heat stroke (which causes multi-organ problems that can include symptoms such as gait instability, seizures, coma and even death).