The world has made dramatic progress in improving health in the poorest countries and narrowing the gaps between countries with the best and worst health status in the past two decades, according to the World Health Statistics 2013.
The WHO annual statistics report, published on Wednesday, highlights how efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have reduced health gaps between the most-advantaged and least-advantaged countries.
As the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) approach the 2015 deadline, this year's World Health Statistics shows the considerable progress made in reducing child and maternal deaths, improving nutrition and reducing deaths and illness from HIV infection, tuberculosis and malaria.
"Intensive efforts to achieve the MDGs have clearly improved health for people all over the world," says Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO. "But with less than 1000 days to go to reach the MDG deadline, it is timely to ask if these efforts have made a difference in reducing the unacceptable inequities between the richest and poorest countries," she added.
This year, the World Health Statistics compares progress made by countries with the best health status and those with least-favorable health status at the MDG baseline year of 1990 and again two decades later.
Globally, tuberculosis (TB) deaths have decreased by more than 40% since 1990 and the trend indicates that this will reach 50% by 2015.
Another key trend outlined in this year's report shows that every year around 15 million babies are born preterm and one million of them die.
Statistics on diabetes show that almost 10% of the world's adult population has diabetes. People with diabetes have increased risk of stroke and are 10 times more likely to need a lower limb amputation than people who do not have diabetes.
Access to medicines is an area of concern mentioned in the report. Many low- and middle-income countries face a scarcity of medicines in the public sector, forcing people to the private sector where prices can be up to 16 times higher. In these countries, an average of only 57% (and as little as 3%) of selected generic medicines are available in the public sector.
Published annually by WHO, the World Health Statistics is the most comprehensive publication of health-related global statistics available. It contains data from 194 countries on a range of mortality, disease and health system indicators.
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