WHO measures global health progress and where it has stalled
New HIV infections down 40% since 2010 and neglected tropical diseases in retreat, but universal health coverage is advancing slowly and the pace of child mortality reduction has fallen by more than 60% since 2015.
Two international reports published in the first half of 2026 allow progress and slowdowns in global health to be read together. The first is World Health Statistics 2026, released by the World Health Organization on 13 May 2026, whose full text is available in the IRIS repository. The second is Levels & Trends in Child Mortality by UN IGME, released on 17-18 March 2026 and presented with a joint press release from WHO, UNICEF, the World Bank Group and the UN Population Division.
Where the numbers are moving in the expected direction
The WHO report records several improving series between 2010 and 2024. New HIV infections fell by 40%. Tobacco consumption and alcohol consumption have both been declining since 2010. Tuberculosis incidence dropped by about 12%. The number of people requiring interventions for neglected tropical diseases fell by 36%.
On the child front, the UN IGME report estimates 4.9 million deaths under age five in 2024, of which 2.3 million were newborns: a figure more than halved compared with 2000. In 2024, 1 in 27 children died before their fifth birthday, compared with 1 in 11 in 1990.
Where things have stalled
The service coverage index for universal health coverage rose from 68 to 71 between 2015 and 2023: three points in eight years. As for the costs borne by households, WHO places 1 in 4 people worldwide in 2022 among those who faced financial barriers in paying for care; in the same year, 1.6 billion people were living in poverty or had fallen into it precisely because of out-of-pocket health payments.
WHO also reports an increase in malaria incidence, measles vaccination coverage below the threshold needed to prevent outbreaks, and a slowdown in the reduction of maternal and child mortality.
This last point is quantified by the UN IGME report. Between 2000 and 2015, under-five mortality declined on average by 3.9% per year; in the 2015-2024 window, the average rate fell to just 1.5%. The pace, in other words, has decreased by more than 60%.
| Indicator | Value |
|---|---|
| New HIV infections, 2010-2024 | −40% |
| Neglected tropical diseases, people requiring treatment | −36% |
| UHC service coverage index, 2015-2023 | from 68 to 71 |
| Deaths under age 5, 2024 | 4.9 million |
| Annual rate of reduction, 2015-2024 | 1.5% (was 3.9%) |
Causes of death, for the first time
The 2026 UN IGME report introduces a methodological innovation: the estimation of deaths directly caused by severe acute malnutrition. There were over 100,000 children aged 1 to 59 months in 2024, equal to 5% of the total. Among newborns, the leading causes remain complications from preterm birth (36%) and those arising during labor and delivery (21%).
The limits of the two reports
Both are based on estimates produced by international agencies drawing on national statistical systems of uneven quality: they are not direct counts. The WHO report contains data up to 2024 and therefore does not incorporate the effects of US cuts to international health aid. A journalistic reading of the report is available on Scientific American.
The uncertainty intervals for the mortality estimates are not reported in the sources used here. Data on universal health coverage stop at 2023 and those on financial hardship at 2022, creating a time lag relative to the rest of the series. The updated database on under-five mortality can be consulted on UNICEF Data, which publishes the complete historical series.
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