Global health, WHO reports widespread slowdown

The World Health Statistics 2026 report, published by the World Health Organization, outlines a picture of insufficient progress toward the health targets set for 2030 under the Sustainable Development Goals. According to the document, none of these targets is currently on track to meet the deadline.

The most telling figure concerns universal health coverage, the indicator that measures the world population’s access to essential health services without incurring financial hardship. The global index rose from 68 to 71 points between 2015 and 2023: an increase which, calculated on an annual basis, is roughly two-thirds slower than the pace recorded between 2000 and 2015. In other words, the expansion of access to care is losing speed precisely in the years when it should be accelerating in order to meet the 2030 deadline.

Complicating the reading of this phenomenon is a problem with the underlying data base. At the end of 2025, only 18% of countries were reporting mortality data within a year of the event, while nearly a third of states had never submitted information on causes of death. This lack of timely and complete data limits the ability of national health systems and international organizations to identify problems in advance and direct resources where they are needed.

On the front of communicable diseases, the report notes a worsening situation for malaria: incidence has increased by 8.5% since 2015, a figure that pushes the world further away from global targets for reducing the disease. This represents a reversal of the progress recorded in the early 2000s, when prevention campaigns had led to a sustained decline in cases in several regions.

Yukiko Nakatani, WHO Deputy Director-General for Health Systems, commented on the report’s findings, stressing that these trends correspond to too high a number of deaths that could have been prevented. The comment sums up the document’s central point: this is not merely a matter of statistical slowdowns, but of concrete consequences on avoidable mortality — that is, mortality that could be prevented with health interventions that are already available and proven.

The report does not identify a single cause for the slowdown, but the combination of insufficient funding, weak data collection systems in large areas of the planet, and the resurgence of certain infectious diseases forms a picture that the WHO describes as fragile. The 2030 deadline formally remains in place, but the published data indicate that the time available to reach the targets is shrinking without the pace of progress having changed to a proportionate degree.