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Alcohol kills 2.6 million people per year, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday, for which this figure remains “unacceptably high” despite a slight decline in recent years.
The UN health agency’s latest report on alcohol and health highlights that alcohol causes almost one in 20 deaths each year globally, including related road accidents, violence, abuse and a host of diseases and disorders.
According to the report, 2.6 million deaths were attributed to alcohol in 2019 – the latest statistics available – or 4.7% of deaths worldwide that year. Men accounted for three-quarters of those deaths.
“Substance use seriously harms individual health, increases the risk of chronic illness and mental illness, and tragically results in millions of preventable deaths each year“, lamented WHO boss Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a press release.
In the report, he points out “some reduction in alcohol consumption and related illnesses since 2010 worldwide“.
But “health and social ills due to alcohol abuse remain unacceptably high“, for Mr. Tedros, who emphasizes that young people are disproportionately affected.
The highest proportion of deaths attributable to alcohol in 2019 is in the 20-39 age group, with 13% of deaths.
Cancers and accidents
Alcohol causes a slew of diseases, including liver cirrhosis and certain cancers.
Of the 2.6 million alcohol-related deaths in 2019, the report indicates that 1.6 million people died from non-communicable diseases, including 474,000 from cardiovascular diseases and 401,000 from cancer.
An additional 724,000 deaths result from injuries, including road accidents and self-harm.
Alcohol abuse also makes people more vulnerable to infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, AIDS and pneumonia.
Approximately 209 million people were living with alcohol dependence in 2019, or 3.7% of the world’s population.
At the same time, individual annual consumption fell slightly, to 5.5 liters in 2019 from 5.7 liters nine years earlier, according to the report.
But consumption is unevenly distributed across the globe, with more than half of the world’s population aged over 15 abstaining completely.
Europe has the highest levels of consumption, with 9.2 liters of alcohol per year on average, followed by the Americas with 7.5 liters.
The lowest consumption is found in Muslim-majority countries in North Africa, the Middle East and Asia, the report explains.
Heavy drinkers
On average, a drinker consumed 27 grams of alcohol per day in 2019, according to the report.
That’s roughly equivalent to two glasses of wine, two beers, or two shots of hard liquor.
“This level and frequency of consumption is associated with higher risks of catching many diseases, as well as mortality and disability.” who accompany them, warns the WHO.
In 2019, 38% of regular drinkers admitted to engaging in heavy drinking episodes, defined as consuming at least 60 grams of pure alcohol on one or more occasions in the previous month.
Globally, 23.5% of 15-19 year olds are considered habitual drinkers.
But the figure jumps to more than 45% for people of that age living in Europe, and to almost 44% for those living in the Americas.
Given the scale of the problem, WHO points to an urgent need to improve access to quality treatment for substance use disorders.
In 2019, the proportion of people in contact with drug addiction services ranged from less than 1% to a maximum of 35%, depending on the country studied.
“Stigma, discrimination and misconceptions about treatment effectiveness contribute to these serious gaps in treatment provision.“, Vladimir Poznyak, head of the WHO’s alcohol, drugs and addictive behaviors department, told reporters.