People are getting older and this is the case almost all over the world. In the period between 1990 and 2021, global life expectancy increased by 6.2 years. This is the conclusion of researchers in a scientific study that has just been published in the medical journal The Lancet. They looked at mortality statistics in 204 countries and bundled them into what is called the ‘Global burden of disease’. Deaths due to natural disasters, war and terrorism are not included.
Between 1990 and 2019, the world was on track to an increased life expectancy of 7.8 years. But then Covid-19 struck. The pandemic killed 63.1 million people in 2020 and almost 68 million more in 2021.
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This mortality cost the world an average of 1.6 years of life expectancy over 2020 and 2021. In Belgium and the rest of Western Europe, this was one year. In our country, life expectancy in 2021, although also a corona year, was almost back to pre-pandemic levels.
According to the world average, a person now lives 71.7 years, another Lancet study showed. There are major differences depending on region and prosperity. A Belgian now looks forward to 81.7 years of life at birth. A Japanese person can count on 85.2 years. For a resident of Haiti that is 60.1 years, and in Zimbabwe it is barely 55 years.
Heart attack on 1
The leading causes of death have remained remarkably stable over the three decades examined. These are heart attack, stroke and chronic lung disease. Mortality has declined for most causes of death over the past three decades. Out of nowhere, Covid-19 became the second biggest cause of death in 2021. Only heart attacks caused more deaths that year.
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Covid-19 did not hit equally hard everywhere. Worst hit were Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. The lowest number of victims occurred in the richer countries, including Western Europe.
East and Southeast Asia and Oceania were able to limit the Covid damage. According to the researchers, the decisive approach to the pandemic plays a significant role in this. As a result, life expectancy on this side of the world will increase the most between 1990 and 2021, by 8.3 years to be precise. Mortality due to heart and lung disease, respiratory infections and cancer also declined here.
In South Asia (including India), the net life gain can be attributed to better control of conditions such as diarrhea and typhoid, something that is also noticeable elsewhere in the world, especially in Africa. Diarrhea and related ailments have fallen from fifth place on the list of causes of death to fourteenth in thirty years. That alone is good for 1.1 years more life expectancy.
The measles
A notable trend that scientists note is that a number of causes of death are becoming more concentrated in fewer countries and regions. This is, for example, the case for malaria. 90 percent of the deaths occur in a strip that runs from West Africa to Mozambique and where only 12 percent of the world’s population lives.
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Such a concentration also occurs for tuberculosis and measles. Not coincidentally in countries (especially African) where vaccinations are scarce. Where this does happen, measles has been dramatically reduced.
The researchers see less positive trends in diabetes and kidney disease, which are increasing in every country. The authors also point to the inequality that still exists between rich countries, which have successfully reduced heart disease, stroke and cancer, and poorer countries, which have been less successful. The life-saving aids should be available to people in all countries, they write.
“This study provides a nuanced picture of the state of health in the world,” writes Liane Ong, one of the lead authors, in an accompanying press release. “On the one hand, we see the achievements that countries are making in preventing deaths from diarrhea and stroke. At the same time, we see how much the pandemic has affected the world.”
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