COVID-19 second-leading cause of death globally in 2021; slashed life expectancy: Lancet study
The Hindu
COVID-19 became the second-leading cause of death globally in 2021, slashing life expectancy by 1.6 years.
COVID-19 (coronavirus) replaced stroke to become the second-leading cause of death globally in 2021, causing 94 deaths per one lakh population and slashing life expectancy by 1.6 years, an international research published in The Lancet journal has found.
“Disrupting more than three decades of consistent improvements in life expectancy and deaths, COVID-19 reversed this long-standing progress to emerge as “one of the most defining global health events of recent history,” researchers said.
“In 2020, deaths around the world rose by 10.8% compared to 2019, and in 2021, they rose by 7.5% relative to 2020. Death rates too followed a similar trend, rising by 8.1% in 2020 and an additional 5.2% in 2021,” the study estimated.
“Globally, COVID-19 and related deaths were responsible for slashing life expectancy by 1.6 years between 2019 and 2021, even as reduced deaths from infections, stroke, and of newborns, among others, had helped steadily enhance life expectancy between 1990 and 2019,” the researchers found.
“India lost 1.9 years of life expectancy due to COVID-19, resulting in a net gain of 7.9 years of life expectancy between 1990 and 2021,” the study showed. "COVID-19 had a pronounced influence on the reduction in global life expectancy that occurred," the authors wrote.
The researchers forming the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Causes of Death Collaborators estimated mortality and years of life lost from 288 causes of death across 204 countries and territories for every year from 1990 until 2021. Region-wise, death rates from COVID-19 were the highest in the sub-Saharan Africa.
“In Latin America and the Caribbean, it was at 271 per one lakh population and almost 200 deaths per one lakh population, respectively. The rate was the lowest in southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania at around 23 deaths per one lakh population,” the researchers estimated.