The effects of the coronavirus pandemic have halted and reversed global health progress, setting it back 25 years and exposing millions to the risk of deadly disease and poverty, a report by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation warned. Because of Covid-19, extreme poverty has increased by 7%, and routine vaccine coverage, a good proxy measure for how health systems are functioning, is dropping to levels last seen in the 1990s, the report said. “It’s a huge setback,” Bill Gates, co-chair of the Foundation and a leading philanthropic funder of global health and development, told a media briefing on the report’s findings.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s fourth annual Goalkeepers Report features new data showing how the ripple effects of COVID-19 have stopped 20 years of progress toward the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (Global Goals). Citing a projection by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the report said the global economy will lose USD 12 trillion or more by the end of 2021 despite the spending of USD 18 trillion in trying to stimulate growth around the world.
The report said the pandemic is having a severe impact on education as well. “Before the pandemic, the world already faced a learning crisis, with 53% of students in low- and middle-income countries – and 87% in sub-Saharan Africa – unable to read a simple text by the time they are 10 years old,” it said. The report said constrained finances and school closures are likely to exacerbate these inequalities, with girls at particular risk of not returning to school.
“We’re at the real cusp moment at how you can tackle this and how long-term the effects are,” said Mark Suzman, the CEO of the Gates Foundation. If the world can get a coronavirus vaccine successfully distributed in the next 18 months or so, things may return to the way they were before the pandemic in one or two years, he said. But in some developing countries, reversing the economic downturn may take longer because they can’t invest as much money in their economies as rich countries, Suzman said.
Gates added that he is confident the world would emerge from the pandemic and resume progress towards the goals on improving global health. “Whether it takes us two years, or even three, we do believe that we’ll overcome this and get back on track,” he said.
