WHO Urges Stronger Health Systems and Better Data

The world is falling short on health targets, with progress uneven, slowing, and in some areas reversing, according to the World Health Statistics 2026 report, published on Wednesday by the World Health Organization (WHO).

While there have been improvements in global health during the past decade, with millions benefiting from better prevention, treatment, and access to essential services, persistent and emerging challenges mean that the world remains off track to achieve any of the health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.

Access to services that shape health outcomes expanded rapidly between 2015 and 2024. During this period:

• 961 million obtained access to safely managed drinking water.
• 2 billion gained sanitation
• 6 billion gained access to basic hygiene.
• 4 billion attained clean cooking solutions.

However, challenges remain. For example, malaria incidence increased by 8.5% since 2015, moving the world further away from global targets while overall progress remains highly uneven across regions.

Many drivers of ill health, including environmental risks, are not improving fast enough. Air pollution contributed to an estimated 6.6 million deaths worldwide in 2021, while inadequate water, sanitation, and hygiene contributed to 1.4 million deaths in 2019.

The COVID-19 pandemic further exposed vulnerabilities in global health systems. Between 2020 and 2023, it was linked to an estimated 22.1 million excess deaths, including indirect deaths. This is more than three times the number of officially reported COVID-19 deaths. These numbers reveal the scale of the pandemic’s global impact, reversing a decade of gains in life expectancy, with recovery remaining incomplete and uneven across regions.

“These trends reflect too many deaths that could have been avoided,” said Dr Yukiko Nakatani, WHO assistant director-general for health systems, access, and data. “With rising environmental risks, health emergencies, and a worsening health financing crisis, we must act urgently in strengthening primary health care, investing in prevention, and securing sustainable financing to build resilient health systems and get back on track.”

The report highlights major data gaps that prevent full assessment of progress. As of the end of 2025, only 18% of countries were reporting mortality data to WHO within one year, and nearly one third have never reported cause-of-death data. Of the estimated 61 million deaths globally in 2023, only about one third were reported with cause-of-death information, and only about one fifth had meaningful International Classification of Diseases (ICD) coded data.