Setback expected on life expectancy progress

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has published its latest comprehensive set of world health statistics for 2020, the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic – which led to an estimated 4.5 million excess deaths that year.The statistics reveal the extent to which the pandemic has affected health systems worldwide, in some cases severely curtailing access to vital services. These disruptions are likely to set back global progress on both life expectancy and healthy life expectancy made in the first 20 years of the century, according to the WHO.Global life expectancy at birth had increased from 66.8 years in 2000 to 73.3 in 2019, and healthy life expectancy increased from 58.3 to 63.7. “This was largely due to gains in maternal and child health, and to major investments and improvements in communicable disease programmes, such as HIV, tuberculosis and malaria. But the 2020 data shows how service disruptions contributed to an increase in deaths from tuberculosis and malaria between 2019 and 2020.”According to the report, life expectancy in Namibia stands at 66.4 years, while healthy life expectancy is 56.1. It added that prior to the pandemic, there had also been encouraging trends globally in the reduction of child stunting, alcohol consumption and tobacco use.Health expenditure worsensIn Namibia, 18.4% of children younger than five are stunted, while the average level of alcohol consumption in Namibia is 3.1 litres of pure alcohol per capita (for persons aged 15 years or older). This, while the prevalence of tobacco use in Namibia stands at 15.1% among people 15 years and older. Meanwhile, the report said obesity among people of all ages and violence against women had either been increasing or remaining at high levels.In Namibia, the prevalence of obesity among adults is 17.2%, and among children and adolescents 4.9%, while 16% of women have been subjected to physical or sexual violence by their partner during the past 12 months and 27% of women in their lifetime. “While service coverage has improved in the last 20 years, catastrophic health expenditure has worsened. With the current global economic recession and health systems struggling to provide continuity of health services, the Covid-19 pandemic is likely to halt the progress made in service coverage and further worsen financial protection globally,” the report read.It added that this is because some people are unable to access care because they cannot afford it. In addition, among those who do seek and obtain services, there is a greater risk of facing financial hardship because of out-of-pocket healthcare spending than before the pandemic. Chronic failureAccording to the report, there are only about six medical doctors per 10 000 people in Namibia and about 20 nursing and midwife personnel per the same number. It said a chronic failure to acknowledge the central role of primary healthcare, and to adequately fund key elements such as the health workforce, both slowed the effectiveness of the response to Covid-19 and triggered disruptions to routine care. This threatens to further jeopardise countries’ abilities to reach the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for health.

Setback expected on life expectancy progress

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Namibian Sun 2022-07-06

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Setback expected on life expectancy progress

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Namibian Sun 2022-07-06

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