The World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday, released a report, estimating that nearly 13 million lives were claimed by the COVID-19 pandemic within just two years since its emergence.
The study, which analyzed global mortality trends, underscored the profound impact of the virus, which swiftly ascended to become the leading cause of death in the Americas, while ranking as the third highest cause of mortality worldwide in 2020, subsequently climbing to second place in 2021.
According to WHO. Between 2019 and 2021, global life expectancy plummeted by 1.8 years, effectively regressing to levels last seen in 2012.
Similarly, healthy life expectancy mirrored this decline, reverting to its 2012 status at 61.9 years.
Regions such as the Americas and Southeast Asia bore the brunt of the pandemic’s wrath, experiencing staggering drops in life expectancy by approximately 3 years and healthy life expectancy by 2.5 years during the same period.
In contrast, the Western Pacific region emerged relatively unscathed during the initial two years of the pandemic.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus lamented the fragility of progress, emphasizing that the pandemic’s toll erased a decade of gains in life expectancy within a mere two years.
The grim reality depicted in the report echoes the somber findings of medical experts who previously suggested that COVID-related deaths could potentially reach as high as 18 million, as reported by the medical journal Lancet.
The WHO report shed light on the persistence of non-communicable diseases as significant contributors to global mortality, accounting for 78% of non-COVID deaths in the years 2020-2021.
Diseases such as ischemic heart disease, stroke, cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Alzheimer’s disease, and diabetes remained formidable adversaries, underscoring the multifaceted challenges facing global public health beyond the pandemic’s immediate threat.
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