WHO estimate is part of World Health Statistics 2020 report
THE WHO (World Health Organization) released this Friday (May 20, 2022) a report with the impacts of the 1st year of the covid-19 pandemic, which led to an excess of deaths estimated at 4.5 million. The data are part of the set of World Health Statistics for 2020.
Statistics reveal the extent to which the pandemic has affected health systems around the world, in some cases severely restricting access to essential services. According to the document, these disruptions are likely to delay global progress in both life expectancy and healthy life expectancy in the first 20 years of the century.
Global life expectancy at birth increased from 66.8 years in 2000 to 73.3 years in 2019, while healthy life expectancy increased from 58.3 years to 63.7 years. This is largely due to gains in maternal and child health and large investments and improvements in communicable disease programs such as HIV, tuberculosis and malaria.
However, 2020 data show that service disruptions contributed to the increase in TB and malaria deaths from 2019 to 2020.
According to the WHO, before the pandemic, there were also global trends that pointed to a reduction in child stunting, alcohol consumption and tobacco use, in addition to increasing access to safely managed drinking water, sanitation and safely managed sewage systems, basic hygiene, clean fuels and cooking technologies.
These advances were partially underpinned by a doubling of global health spending between 2000 and 2019, reaching 9.8% of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP). But approximately 80% of this expenditure took place in high-income countries, with the majority (about 70%) coming from government budgets.
In low-income countries, out-of-pocket payments were the main source of health expenditures (44%), followed by foreign aid (29%).
PANDEMIC
While service coverage has improved over the past 20 years, health spending has worsened. “With the current global economic downturn and healthcare systems struggling to continue providing healthcare, the Covid-19 pandemic is likely to halt progress made in healthcare coverage and further worsen financial protection globally.“, evaluated the WHO.
According to the organization, the scenario is because some people are unable to access health systems because they cannot pay out of pocket. Furthermore, among those seeking and obtaining services, there is currently a greater risk of facing financial difficulties because of direct health expenditures than before the pandemic.
According to the report, at the same time, a chronic failure to recognize the central role of primary health care and adequately fund key elements such as the health workforce has slowed the effectiveness of the COVID-19 response and triggered disruptions. in routine care that threaten to further undermine the ability of countries to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals for health by 2030.
With information from Agência Brasil.
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