SDG setback — WHO warns world may miss 2030 health goals

The World Health Organization has warned that global health progress is slowing and becoming increasingly uneven, raising the risk that the world could miss health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.

In its World Health Statistics 2026 report, WHO said the past decade had brought significant gains in public health, but that progress has now stalled, become unequal and, in some areas, begun to reverse. The report consolidates data on health-related SDG indicators and assesses progress towards globally agreed targets.

A decade of progress

The report highlighted several areas of improvement between 2010 and 2024.

• New HIV infections fell by 40%, while smoking and alcohol consumption declined. The number of people requiring treatment for neglected tropical diseases also dropped by 36%.
• Access to basic services also improved between 2015 and 2024. Around 961 million more people gained access to safe drinking water, 1.2 billion more people gained access to sanitation, and 1.4 billion more people gained access to clean cooking technologies.
• There were also regional achievements. Africa recorded the world’s fastest decline in HIV infections, at 70%, and reduced tuberculosis by 28%, while Southeast Asia is on track to meet the malaria reduction target by 2025.

Warning signs remain

Despite these gains, the report warned that major public-health challenges continue to hold back progress.

Global malaria incidence has increased by 8.5% since 2015, moving in the opposite direction from global targets.

Women’s and children’s health also remains a serious concern. Anaemia still affects 30.7% of women of reproductive age, with no improvement over the past decade. Among children under five, overweight prevalence rose to 5.5% in 2024. Domestic violence also remains widespread, with one in four women globally having experienced violence from an intimate partner.

Progress towards universal health coverage has also slowed. The global health-service coverage index rose only slightly from 68 to 71 between 2015 and 2023, while around 1.6 billion people faced poverty or financial hardship from out-of-pocket health spending in 2022.

Environmental threats remain among the most serious health risks. WHO data cited in the report show that air pollution contributed to 6.6 million deaths worldwide in 2021. Inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene systems caused another 1.4 million deaths in 2019.

For Thailand, air pollution remains a major public-health issue. Earlier air-quality coverage showed that global air pollution worsened in 2025, with Thailand ranking 48th among the world’s most polluted countries and recording an average PM2.5 concentration of 17.8 micrograms per cubic metre, still above WHO’s annual guideline of 5 micrograms per cubic metre.

Health data in Thailand have also underlined the human cost of PM2.5 exposure. Public Health Ministry figures showed that around 3 million Thais suffered from illnesses linked to PM2.5 in 2024, including respiratory, eye and skin-related conditions.

Covid-19 impact still being felt

WHO said the Covid-19 pandemic continued to leave a deep mark on global health.

Between 2020 and 2023, the pandemic was associated with 22.1 million excess deaths, around three times the officially reported Covid-19 death toll. The crisis reversed years of accumulated gains in global life expectancy, while recovery has remained unequal across regions.

Poor health data weakens response

WHO also warned that gaps in high-quality public-health data remain a major barrier to solving health problems.

By the end of 2025, only 18% of countries had reported mortality data to WHO within one year. Nearly one-third of countries had never reported cause-of-death data at all, and only one-third met WHO standards for high-quality mortality data.

Of the roughly 61 million deaths worldwide in 2023, only one-third had recorded cause-of-death information, and only one-fifth were properly coded according to the international standard disease classification, or ICD.

Dr Alain Labrique, WHO’s director of data and digital health, said the data gap limits the ability to monitor health trends in real time, compare outcomes between countries and design effective public-health responses.

WHO calls for investment in equity

WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the figures showed both progress and deeply rooted inequality.

“These data tell a story of both progress and persistent inequality, with many people, especially women, children and those in underserved communities, still denied the basic conditions for a healthy life,” he said. “Investing in stronger, more equitable health systems, including resilient health data systems is essential to target action, close gaps and ensure accountability.”