337 million life years lost to Covid-19 pandemic: WHO

Geneva: The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday that around 337 million life years were lost after millions of premature deaths in the first two years of Covid-19, Agence France-Presse reported.

WHO’s annual world statistics report suggests that there is an increasing threat from non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes.

The pandemic has wreaked global devastation and officially killed nearly seven million people, with the true figure believed to be closer to 20 million.

When the official number of death due to a pandemic globally stands at seven million, the truth is believed to be around 20 million. Further, WHO’s statistics show 5.4 million Covid deaths in 2020 and 2021, while the excess mortality data suggests that 14.9 million people likely died in the two years.

At the launch of the annual report, WHO’s assistant chief for data and analytics told reporters that the loss of 337 million life years is like losing 22 years of life for every excess death.

WHO then warned that the pandemic threw many health-related indicators, which were being improved through the years, off-track. In the first two decades of the century, the world saw enormous improvements in maternal and child health.

Cases of infectious diseases like HIV, Malaria and Tuberculosis, along with premature deaths from NCDs, fell significantly. Global life expectancy was 67 years in 2000, which climbed to 73 in 2019.

But the unexpected hit by the pandemic destabilized all of the mentioned above.

WHO’s study inferred that when the world registers overall progress in health, the share of deaths caused by NCDs grew annually.

When NCDs caused 61 per cent of annual deaths, it reached 74 per cent in 2019, suggesting that 89 per cent of 90 million deaths annually will be contributed by NDCs, WHO said.