According to a study published in The Lancet, Covid-19 became the second leading cause of death globally, a year after it was declared a pandemic. The publication said that while heart disease remains the top killer, Covid has “radically changed” the top five causes of death, replacing stroke for the first time in 30 years. In 2021, on an age-standardized basis, 94 out of every 100,000 people died from Covid.
Since 1990, global life expectancy has increased by 6.2 years, largely due to reduced deaths from diarrhea and lower respiratory infections and improved outcomes for people suffering stroke or ischemic heart disease.
“Our study presents a nuanced picture of the world’s health,” said Lian Ong, co-first author of the study and principal research scientist at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. “On the one hand, we see huge achievements by countries in preventing deaths from diarrhea and stroke. “At the same time, we see how much the COVID-19 pandemic has set us back.”
From 2019 to 2021, progress has been made in preventing deaths from Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias and most other top causes of death except malaria.
It is believed to be the first study to compare deaths from Covid with deaths from other causes. It identified 288 causes of death in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations.
