The International Classification of Diseases (ICD) provides a common language that allows health professionals to share standardized information across the world. The eleventh revision contains around 17 000 unique codes and more than 120 000 codable terms is now entirely digital.
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)
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).
