In just two years, the Covid-19 pandemic has wiped out more than a decade of progress in life expectancy at birth and healthy life expectancy (HLE), according to the Organization’s latest report World Health Organization (WHO) on global health statistics.
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While life expectancy at birth increased from 66.8 years in 2000 to 73.1 years in 2019 globally, it fell to 71.4 years in 2021, a level that had no longer been observed since 2012. Healthy life expectancy has seen a similar evolution, increasing from 58.1 years in 2000 to 63.5 years in 2019, before falling to 61.9 years in 2021.
All regions of the world have been affected, but to varying degrees. The Americas and Southeast Asia saw the largest declines between 2019 and 2021, with around 3 years lost in life expectancy and 2.5 years lost in healthy life expectancy. The Western Pacific was the least affected region over this period, with losses of 0.1 year for life expectancy and 0.2 year for EVBS.
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Regaining these two years of life expectancy will not be easy, acknowledged Samira Asma, WHO deputy head for data and analysis. “It is a challenge, but we must redouble our efforts. We have all the technical solutions to get there,” she insisted. “Today’s health systems must adapt quickly to respond to demographic changes and persistent inequalities.”
The scale of the pandemic’s impact has also varied over time across regions. The Americas, Europe and Eastern Mediterranean regions were all hit harder in the first year of the pandemic, with 2020 accounting for at least two-thirds of the decline in life expectancy and three-fifths of that in EVBS. Conversely, coinciding with the wider spread of the Delta variant, the decline in life expectancy and EVBS in African and Southeast Asian regions occurred more markedly in 2021, representing at least 65% of total losses over the 2019-2021 period.
The pandemic has also reversed the epidemiological transition towards non-communicable diseases. While the latter represented 73.9% of deaths in 2019, their share fell to 65.3% in 2021. Conversely, the share of communicable diseases rose to 28.1% of deaths in 2021, a level which had not been observed since 2005. In addition, Covid-19 was responsible for 4.1 million deaths in 2020 and 8.8 million in 2021, ranking among the top three causes of death in the world.
“At the halfway point of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), progress in health is mixed,” summarizes the WHO. None of the numerical objectives have yet been achieved or are in the process of being achieved based on current trends, Ms. Asma underlined.
Likewise, the world is not on the right trajectory to achieve the WHO’s “three billion targets” objective by 2025, namely one billion additional people who will benefit from universal health coverage, a billion more people protected from health emergencies and a billion more people enjoying better health and well-being.
Compared to 2018, an additional 585 million people are expected to have access to essential health services without incurring catastrophic expenses by 2025, far from the targeted billion. In terms of health emergency preparedness, an additional 777 million people should be protected by 2025, again below the target. Improving population health is the only area on track to meet its billion target, with an additional 1.5 billion people expected to live healthier lives by 2025.
Alongside these issues, the global “double burden” of malnutrition, combining undernutrition and excess weight, continues to weigh heavily, affecting all age groups, points out the WHO. More than a billion people aged 5 and over suffer from obesity and more than half a billion are underweight. Among children under 5, 148 million are stunted, 45 million are wasted and 37 million are overweight.
Furthermore, in 2021, around 1.3 billion people, or 16% of the world’s population, lived with a disability.
In terms of migration, only half of the 84 countries analyzed between 2018 and 2021 gave refugees and migrants access equivalent to that of nationals to state-funded health services. For these populations, reducing health inequalities requires better data collection to identify their needs and monitor progress, as well as more equitable and inclusive health systems, argues the WHO.
