Half of global population lacks essential health care – WHO

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said half of the world’s total population does not have access to essential health care despite global efforts.

According to the global body’s Director-General, Tedros Ghebreyesus, a significant number of people are excluded from health care and about two billion people face financial hardship due to out-of-pocket health spending.

Mr Tedros said this on Monday at the 77th World Health Assembly taking place in Geneva, Switzerland. The assembly which has world leaders in attendance is themed: “All for Health, Health for All.”

At the event which is expected to end on 1 June, Mr Ghebreyesus said there’s a regression in the rate of financial protection of citizens seeking health care at a global level.

He said: “Half the world’s population is not fully covered by essential health services. This is staggering. We estimate that 585 million more people will be covered by essential health services without catastrophic health spending by 2025– only a little over halfway towards our target of 1 billion.

“Although 30 per cent of countries have made progress since 2000 on both service coverage and financial protection, at the global level we’re going backwards on financial protection.”

As a way to improve this, WHO official said the organisation is supporting some countries that have made Universal Health Coverage commitments to improve the quality and availability of healthcare delivery in their countries.

He said the global body is working in more than 120 countries through the UHC Partnership.

“We also joined a consortium of multilateral development banks to launch the Health Impact Investment Platform, with funds of 1.5 billion euros to support primary health care projects in countries. We aim to start making disbursements from September.

“Last year, we supported 23 countries to strengthen their health and care workforce,” he said.

Improvement in maternal health

To improve maternal, newborn and child care, WHO said it has supported 43 countries to develop acceleration plans to reduce mortality.

Mr Ghebreyesus said the organisation is set to train nurses and midwives in these countries to use a set of basic emergency care tools that can reduce hospital mortality by up to half.

He said the global institution has also aided 23 priority countries to facilitate access to quality, survivor-centred services for sexual violence.

He noted that the organisation has also supported 18 countries to strengthen care for older people.

“And 20 more countries adopted legislation on various aspects of age-related health issues. We published a new report that shows that globally, one in six people of reproductive age suffer from infertility.

“Of course, the point of all this work to strengthen health systems is to improve health outcomes – and on that score, there is plenty of reason for cheer,” he said.

Diet, nutrition

Mr Ghebreyesus also noted that there have been positive trends in efforts to improve nutrition and healthy diets.

He said that in the previous year, 13 countries passed or implemented policies to eliminate trans fat from their food supply. As such, half the world’s population is now protected by such policies, compared with just seven per cent in 2018.

The DG further noted that after the WHO launched its call for action campaign, it estimated that the policies helped to cut the number of annual deaths caused by trans fats by two-thirds.

He said: “With support from WHO, more and more countries are taking action to tackle obesity and child wasting, and to scale up breastfeeding; and 28 countries increased taxes on alcohol, tobacco or sugary drinks. We’re also working to make the world’s roads safer.

“Over the past decade, 45 countries have reduced road traffic deaths by at least 30 per cent. And 10 have achieved a reduction of 50 per cent or more: Belarus, Brunei Darussalam, Denmark, Japan, Lithuania, Norway, the Russian Federation, Trinidad and Tobago, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela.

“And we’re increasing our work on behavioural science, to understand better why people make decisions about their health.”

At the Assembly, a series of strategic roundtables are to be held and during these sessions, WHO delegates, partner agencies, representatives of civil society and WHO experts will be discussing current and future priorities for public health issues.