Life expectancy worldwide has risen to nearly
75 for women.—AFP/VNA Photo
PARIS —
Life expectancy worldwide has jumped by a decade since 1980, rising in 2015 to
69 years for men and nearly 75 for women, according to a comprehensive overview
of global health released.
These
extra years came in large measure thanks to a sharp drop in deaths from
communicable diseases, especially over the last decade, said the Global Burden
of Disease report, published in The Lancet on Thursday.
Despite
population increases, combined mortality from HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis -- both
major killers -- fell by more than a quarter, from 3.1 million in 2005 to 2.3
million in 2015.
Over this
period, annual deaths due to diarrhoeal diseases decreased by 20 per cent.
And
malaria mortality plummeted by more than a third, from 1.2 million in 2005 to
730,000 last year.
During
that decade, life expectancy went up in 188 of 195 countries and territories.
At the
same time, however, non-communicable diseases of all kinds -- ranging from
cancers to heart disease and stroke -- claimed more lives, with the death toll
rising from 35 million in 2005 to 39 million in 2015.
"As
we live longer, the burden of non-communicable diseases is rising -- along with
the attendant costs of treatment," Kevin Watkins, head of Save the
Children UK, noted in a comment, also in The Lancet.
Many of
the diseases on the rise are associated with ageing: cancers, coronary artery
disease, cirrhosis of the liver and Alzheimer’s, among others.
The
paradox is that even as lifespans grow, more people are spending more time in
ill health of living with disabilities, the 100-page study found.
Centralising
the expertise of nearly 1,900 experts, the report -- coordinated by the
Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in
Seattle -- comes at the juncture between two major UN health initiatives.
The
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), set in 2000, set hard targets for reducing
child and maternal mortality, and combatting key communicable diseases, by
2015.
A 15-year
clock on a new set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) -- several of them
health related -- began running last year.
The
report is intended as a benchmark for this new effort.
There
have been other major health gains over the last quarter century.
The
number of deaths of children under five, for example, dropped by more than 50
percent from 1990 to 2015, to 5.8 million.
National score cards
But that
was still well short of the MDG calling for under-five mortality to be slashed
by two-thirds.
Had that
target been met, another 14 million children would have survived to see their
fifth birthday.
There
were exceptions to the generally positive trends, many stemming from conflict.
Since
2011, global deaths from war have risen massively due in large part to fighting
in Syria, Yemen and Libya.
Male life
expectancy in Syria has dropped more than 11 years since the civil war there
began.
In 2015,
the number of people displaced by armed conflict and disasters reached a record
65 million. Over half of the world’s refugees are children.
The
report also "graded" countries, indicating whether mortality levels
from specific causes were lower or higher than expected, taking into account
each nation’s income and education levels, as well as fertility rates.
The
United States, for example, scored very poorly on coronary heart disease,
chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and drug abuse.
Many
Eastern European countries scored poorly on these, as well as alcohol abuse and
stroke.
Western
European and East Asian countries, generally speaking, scored highest.
AFP
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