CANBERRA, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- Heart disease is still Australia's leading cause of death but alcohol-induced deaths are on the decline, statistics revealed on Wednesday.

Data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on Wednesday revealed that 160,909 people died in Australia in 2017.

Deaths from heart disease declined from the 2016 figure but it remained the most common cause of death followed by dementia, cerebrovascular disease, chronic lower respiratory disease and lung cancer, which dropped from fourth to fifth.

In 2017, the rate of lung cancer decreased and it has moved down to be the fifth leading cause of death, Justine Boland, program manager of the Health and Disability Branch at the ABS, said in a media release.

"However, there was an increase in deaths due to chronic lower respiratory diseases including emphysema, which is now the fourth leading cause of death, highlighting that smoking related illness is still a serious public health issue in Australia."

Cancers accounted for 30 percent of all deaths with colorectal, breast and prostate cancers joining lung cancer as the biggest killer.

The rate of deaths directly attributed to alcohol was 5.1 per 100,000, down from 6.6 per 100,000 20 years ago.

"There were 1,366 alcohol-induced deaths in 2017, with those deaths most commonly occurring in males aged in their early 60s and caused by alcoholic liver diseases," Boland said.

However, when broadened to include all deaths where alcohol was a factor rather than the cause, there were 4,186 deaths. Australian women recorded the highest level of alcohol-related deaths for 20 years at 7.0 deaths per 100,000.

The number of deaths from influenza nearly tripled from 464 in 2016 to 1255 in 2017 on account of a bad flu season.

Australia maintained one of the world's lowest infant mortality rates at 3.3 deaths per 1000 live births.