WHO Results Report 2023 urges drive toward SDGs

The World Health Organization (WHO) Results Report 2023, showcases achievement of key public health milestones. The report is released ahead of the 2024 77th World Health Assembly, which runs May 27, 2024 to June 1, 2024. WHO’s revised Programme Budget for 2022–2023 was US$ 6726.1 million, incorporating lessons learned from the pandemic response and addressing emerging health priorities.  

With 96 per cent of WHO country offices providing 174 country reports on achievements, the report shows progress towards 46 targets and highlights challenges. 

Triple billion targets 

“The world is off track to reach most of the triple billion targets and the health-related Sustainable Development Goals,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “However, with concrete and concerted action to accelerate progress, we could still achieve a substantial subset of them. Our goal is to invest even more resources where they matter most—at the country level—while ensuring sustainable and flexible financing to support our mission.” 

The report shows advancement in several key areas, including healthier populations, universal health coverage (UHC), and health emergencies protection. 

Related to healthier populations, the current trajectory indicates the target of 1 billion more people enjoying better health and well-being will likely be met by 2025, driven primarily by improvements in air quality and access to water, sanitation and hygiene measures. 

In terms of UHC, 30 per cent of countries are moving ahead in coverage of essential health services and providing financial protection. This is largely due to increased HIV service coverage.

Regarding emergencies protection, though the coverage of vaccinations for high-priority pathogens shows improvement relative to the COVID-19 pandemic-related disruptions in 2020–2021, it has not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels.  

The Pandemic Fund’s first disbursements totaled US$ 338 million in 2023, supporting 37 countries to fund the initial response to acute events and scale up life-saving health operations in protracted crises. WHO continues to work with countries and partners to enhance genomic sequencing capabilities and strengthen laboratory and surveillance systems worldwide with capacity increased by 62 per cent for SARS-CoV-2 between February 2021 and December 2023. 

Prominent points 

The world’s first malaria vaccine, RTS,S/AS01, was administered to more than two million children in Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi during the biennium, reducing mortality by 13 per cent among children eligible for vaccination. WHO’s prequalification of a second vaccine, R21/Matrix-M, is expected to further boost malaria control efforts. 

Elsewhere, 14 countries eliminated at least one neglected tropical disease from 2022–2023. Bangladesh eliminated 2. 

The first-ever all-oral treatment regimens for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis were made available in 2022, allowing the highest number of people with tuberculosis to get treatment since monitoring began almost 30 years ago.  

Thanks to WHO’s REPLACE initiative, which aims to eliminate industrially-produced trans-fatty acids from the food supply, an additional 13 countries implemented best-practice policies, bringing the total to 53 countries.  

More than 75 per cent of people living with HIV are receiving antiretroviral therapy, with most achieving viral suppression — meaning they cannot infect others. WHO’s guidance and support have helped countries like Botswana achieve significant progress in controlling HIV transmission. 

Tobacco use is declining in 150 countries, 56 of which are on track to achieve the global target for reducing tobacco use by 2025. 

An additional 29 countries developed multi sectoral national action plans on antimicrobial resistance during the biennium 2022–2023, bringing the total to 178 countries. 

Following the Director-General’s call to eliminate cervical cancer, another 25 countries have introduced the human papillomavirus vaccine, bringing the total to 58 that have introduced the vaccine since WHO launched the initiative in 2020.  

The way forward 

The report acknowledges significant disparities in health outcomes, disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and that persistent health workforce shortages require investments in education and employment. 

Looking ahead, WHO’s Programme Budget for 2024–2025 aims to balance investment in the organisation’s normative functions with the need to strengthen country offices. It aims to fund 80 per cent of the planned budget of high-priority items, thereby accelerating progress towards meeting the triple billion targets of the GPW 13 (current WHO strategy for the period 2019-2023).

Edits made by EH News Bureau