In just two years, the Covid-19 pandemic wiped out over a decade of progress in life expectancy at birth and healthy life expectancy, according to the latest report from the World Health Organisation (WHO) on global health statistics.
Despite a global rise in life expectancy from 66.8 years in 2000 to 73.1 years in 2019, it fell to 71.4 years in 2021 – a level last seen in 2012. Healthy life expectancy followed a similar pattern, dropping from 63.5 years in 2019 to 61.9 in 2021.
Worldwide, all regions were impacted though not equally. The Americas and Southeast Asia registered the biggest drops between 2019 and 2021, with about three years lost for life expectancy and 2.5 for healthy life expectancy. Conversely, the Western Pacific suffered the least, with losses of just 0.1 and 0.2 years, respectively.
WHO Deputy Chief for Data and Analysis Samira Asma warns that regaining these years won't be easy: "We need to double our efforts [but] we have all the technical solutions to achieve it. Today's health systems must quickly adapt to demographic shifts and persistent inequalities."
The world is on track to achieve ZERO of the 32 health-related global targets supporting the Sustainable Development Goals. Timely, accurate and actionable data is crucial to accelerate progress to reach the #GlobalGoals by 2030. 📊 https://t.co/mQj9P66seJ pic.twitter.com/SoDA2Jl5PU
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) May 25, 2024
The Americas, Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean were hardest hit in 2020, accounting for at least two-thirds of the decline in life expectancy. Conversely, the spread of the Delta variant in African and Southeast Asian regions resulted in a sharper decrease in 2021, accounting for at least 65% of total losses from 2019 to 2021.
Covid-19 caused 4.1 million deaths in 2020 and 8.8 million in 2021, ranking it among the top three causes of death worldwide.
The WHO stated that progress towards its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is "mixed" and points out that the world isn't on course to meet the WHO's "three billion targets" by 2025: an additional billion people with universal health coverage, another billion protected from health emergencies, and a billion more experiencing better health and wellbeing.
Compared to 2018, an additional 585 million people should have access to essential health services without facing catastrophic costs by 2025, falling short of the billion target. Regarding emergency preparedness, another 777 million still need to be protected by 2025 – again, far below the target. Only the health improvement category is on track to reach its target of an additional billion, with 1.5 billion projected to live better by 2025.
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Alongside these issues, the WHO highlights the "double burden" of malnutrition, a term that combines undernutrition and overweight problems. More than a billion people worldwide aged 5 and older suffer from obesity and more than half a billion are underweight. Among under-5s, 148 million have stunted growth, 45 million are underweight and 37 million are overweight.
In 2021 about 1.3 billion people (16% of the world's population) lived with some form of disability.
