NEW DELHI: COVID-19 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 per cent compared to 2019, and in 2021, they rose by 7.5 per cent relative to 2020. Death rates too followed a similar trend, rising by 8.1 per cent in 2020 and an additional 5.2 per cent in 2021, the study estimated.
