The world is falling behind on major global health targets, with progress slowing or reversing, according to the latest World Health Statistics 2026 Report.
Released by the World Health Organization (WHO) today, the Report highlights significant gains made over the past decade, including declines in HIV infections, tobacco use, alcohol consumption, and neglected tropical diseases.
However, the Agency has warned that persistent inequalities, rising environmental risks, and weak health systems are preventing the world from meeting health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.
According to the Report, new HIV infections dropped by 40 percent between 2010 and 2024, while the number of people requiring interventions for neglected tropical diseases fell by 36 percent during the same period.
Access to essential services also improved substantially, with nearly one billion people gaining access to safe drinking water and over 1.4 billion obtaining clean cooking solutions between 2015 and 2024.
The WHO African Region recorded faster-than-global reductions in HIV infections and tuberculosis, while the South-East Asia region remains on track to meet its malaria reduction milestone for 2025.
Despite these improvements, the WHO, in the Report, says that several health challenges continue to worsen. Global malaria incidence has risen by 8.5 percent since 2015, and anaemia still affects nearly one-third of women of reproductive age.
Childhood overweight rates reached 5.5 percent in 2024, while violence against women remains widespread, with one in four women experiencing intimate partner violence globally.
WHO Director-General, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that many people, especially women, children, and underserved communities, are still denied the basic conditions for a healthy life.
“These data tell a story of both progress and persistent inequality,” he noted
The Report also noted that progress toward Universal Health Coverage has slowed significantly, with the global service coverage index rising only slightly between 2015 and 2023, and nearly 1.6 billion people pushed into poverty due to out-of-pocket health spending in 2022.
WHO has warned that maternal mortality remains nearly three times higher than the 2030 target, despite a 40 percent decline since 2000, and that progress in reducing deaths from noncommunicable diseases has also slowed.
Environmental and behavioural risks continue to contribute heavily to poor health outcomes. Air pollution caused an estimated 6.6 million deaths in 2021, while inadequate water, sanitation, and hygiene were linked to 1.4 million deaths in 2019.
Dr Yukiko Nakatani, WHO Assistant Director-General for Health Systems, said “ These trends reflect too many deaths that could have been avoided and called for urgent investment in primary healthcare, prevention, and sustainable health financing.”
WHO also raised concerns over poor health data collection worldwide, noting that as of the end of 2025, only 18 percent of countries were reporting mortality data to WHO within one year, while nearly one-third had never submitted cause-of-death data.
Dr Alain Labrique, Director for the Department of Data, Digital Health, Analytics, and Artificial Intelligence, said weak data systems limit a country’s ability to monitor health trends and respond effectively to crises.
“Country efforts to invest in stronger systems, digitalization and improved reporting standards are encouraging and should be sustained; they are essential to enable countries to collect, integrate, analyze and use health data for better decisions,” said Labrique.
While progress has been made, global health gains remain fragile, WHO has urged countries to strengthen health systems, improve data collection, and accelerate action to get back on track toward achieving the 2030 health goals.
By Wangari Ndirangu
