Half of world's population not fully covered by essential health services - WHO
Despite huge strides in coverage, the World Health Organization's (WHO) chief said on Monday that only 585 million more people will be covered by essential health services without catastrophic health spending by 2025, putting the UN’s international public health organization only slightly more than halfway toward its goal of 1 billion, Anadolu reported.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the annual World Health Assembly (WHA) in the highlights of his annual report that 2 billion people face financial hardship due to out-of-pocket health spending.
“Although 30% 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,” Tedros stated in his report at the WHA, which is normally held annually.
Half of the world's population is not fully covered by essential health services as in 2023, the WHO responded to 65 global emergencies, he said, describing it as a year of many challenges, but also many accomplishments.
These included earthquakes in Türkiye and the Syrian Arab Republic, as well as conflict and insecurity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Gaza, Haiti, Myanmar, Sudan, and Ukraine.
It also responded to outbreaks of cholera, dengue, diphtheria, hepatitis E, Marburg, measles, mpox and others.
Tedros also emphasized the WHO's role in providing health services in conflict zones such as Gaza, Sudan, and Ukraine, calling for an immediate cease-fire in all three war-torn regions.
At the second High-Level Meeting on Universal Health Care at the UN General Assembly, countries made more than 50 commitments to progressively expand access to essential health services, and improve financial protection.
“This is the only one of the three targets that we estimate will be met, with 1.5 billion people expected to be enjoying better health and well-being by 2025,” he said.
