The latest World Health Statistical Report once again confirmed the high volume of excess deaths during the Covid-19 pandemic, as the report estimated that 22.1 million excess deaths occurred between 2020 and 2023, more than three times the documented deaths of 7 million cases.
The excess mortality rate reached its highest levels in 2021, at 10.4 million deaths, as more deadly variants emerged and health systems faced severe pressures, before falling to 3.3 million deaths in 2023. Men saw consistently higher excess deaths than women, with age-standardised death rates being around 50% higher among men than women at the peak of 2021.
A strong age gradient was also evident; The data showed that the excess death rate rose sharply in older people and was 10 times higher in people aged 85 or older than among younger adults.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a setback of historic proportions that wiped out nearly a decade of gains in life expectancy and healthy life expectancy by 2021, according to the report released Wednesday. She added that the recovery since 2022 has been uneven, with continuing disparities by region, age and gender.
The World Health Statistics Report provides the most comprehensive annual assessment of global health trends available to WHO Member States and the broader international health community.
He added that progress towards achieving the health-related Sustainable Development Goals is insufficient, uneven across regions and populations, and increasingly vulnerable to systemic shocks. He added that progress has stalled in the areas of universal health coverage, maternal and child health, and a decline in premature mortality from non-communicable diseases – which remain the leading causes of death globally.
Data show a continued long-term global decline in infectious diseases: between 2010 and 2024, new human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections decreased by 40%; The incidence of tuberculosis has decreased by 12% since 2015; The number of people needing interventions to treat neglected tropical diseases decreased by 36% compared to 2010.
However, the global incidence of malaria has increased by 8.5% since 2015.
High prevalence rates of preventable risk factors continue to hinder improvements. The global prevalence of anemia among women of reproductive age rose slightly to 30.7% in 2023 compared to the level of 2012, and overweight among children under the age of 5 years reached 5.5% in 2024.
According to the report, progress towards universal health coverage (UHC) has slowed significantly in the SDG era (after 2015, when the goals were adopted). Between 2015 and 2023, the global UHC service coverage index rose from 68 to just 71, reflecting a slower improvement of about two-thirds compared to 2000-2015. The report showed that about a quarter of the world’s population faces financial difficulties due to out-of-pocket health spending, and that 1.6 billion people live in poverty or have been pushed into poverty due to health expenses as of 2022.
Coverage of four childhood vaccines (one of the indicators of the Sustainable Development Goals) remains below the global target of 90%, especially for the second dose of the measles vaccine, and immunity gaps continue to fuel outbreaks.
The report said global death rates have improved since 2000, but progress has slowed sharply in key health areas. Maternal mortality and under-five mortality have declined by 40% and 51% respectively since 2000, yet progress has slowed in the era of the Sustainable Development Goals. The maternal mortality ratio for 2023 remains nearly three times the target, and many countries are not on track to meet child mortality targets. Globally, premature deaths from the four major non-communicable diseases have decreased by more than 20% since 2000, but progress is uneven and has slowed significantly since 2015.
“As a result, no WHO region is on track to achieve the 2030 Sustainable Development Goal; some regions are stagnating or worsening, and the COVID-19 pandemic has added further uncertainty. While there have been long-term declines in injury-related deaths – such as road traffic injuries, homicides and unintentional poisonings – inequalities persist with marked regional variation and persistently higher risks among males for all these causes,”
Additionally, environmental hazards, such as air pollution, cause millions of preventable deaths each year – 6.6 million deaths in 2021 attributable to exposure to household and ambient air pollution due to particulate matter.
“As the Sustainable Development Goals period enters its final years, we must accelerate our efforts,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in the introduction. “Countries and partners have a shared responsibility to ensure sustained political commitment, adequate and predictable financing, and evidence-based decision-making. This report provides critical evidence that we must work together to achieve.”
