India, May 24 -- New Pandemic Agreement important not only to strengthen global health security, but to protect long-term investments in health and promote equity within and between countries

Globally, the proportion of deaths from non-communicable diseases (NCDs) rose to to 73.9 per cent by 2019 and the share of communicable diseases dropped to 18.2 per cent, according to the annual World Health Statistics Report released on May 24, 2024.

The estimates showed that 13 million people died of COVID-19 between 2020 and 2021. During which time, COVID-19 visibly became the leading cause of death among communicable diseases, ranking third-highest worldwide as the cause of mortality globally in 2020 and second in 2021.

Communicable diseases, ...