Nigeria, with 54.5 years, on lowest life expectancy list

• Country tops list of seven countries infected with vaccine-derived polio virus
• Japanese women live longest at 86.8 years with Swiss men at 81.3
• Sierra Leone has least scores for both gender

Despite worldwide increase by five years in life expectancy with Africa seeing the biggest improvement, Nigeria is among the seven countries with the lowest scores with average of 54.5 years for both men and women.

The other countries in decreasing order are: Lesotho at 53.7 years; Cote D’Ivoire at 53.3 years; Chad 53.1 years; Central African Republic 52.5 years; Angola at 52.4 years; and Sierra Leone at 50.1 years.

The World Health Statistics 2016 published by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and first reported in DailMailUk revealed that life expectancy worldwide has increased by about five years in the last 15 years.

Healthy life expectancy -which is a measure of the number of years of good health that a newborn in 2015 can expect – stands at 63.1 years globally (64.6 years for females and 61.5 years for males).

The World Health Statistics 2016 provides a comprehensive overview of the latest annual data in relation to the health-related targets in the SDGs, illustrating the scale of the challenge.

Published every year since 2005, WHO’s World Health Statistics is the definitive source of information on the health of the world’s people.

Besides, Nigeria tops the list of seven countries infected with circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus (cVDPV) but not currently exporting.

Other countries on the list, according to a statement by the World Health Organisation (WHO) after the ninth meeting of the Emergency Committee (EC) under the International Health Regulations (2005) (IHR) regarding the international spread of poliovirus, include: Guinea, Madagascar, Ukraine, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, and Myanmar.

The World Health Statistics 2016 contains data from 194 countries on a range of mortality, disease and health system indicators, including life expectancy, illness and death from key diseases, health services and treatments, financial investment in health, and risk factors and behaviours that affect health.

According to the WHO report, the rise is the fastest seen since the 1960s with the biggest increase seen in Africa and this is the due to improvements in health care for children and the better availability of medicines, including those for malaria and AIDS.

The UN health agency says globally, life expectancy for a baby born in 2015 was 71 for women and 69 for men, with women in Japan and men in Switzerland typically living the longest.

Sierra Leone had the lowest life expectancy for both genders.

The report noted there were glaring gaps in data from some countries and that about half of all deaths worldwide aren’t registered.

But Director-General of WHO, Dr. Margaret Chan, said: “The figures represented great strides’ in global health. The world has made great strides in reducing the needless suffering and premature deaths that arise from preventable and treatable diseases.

“But the gains have been uneven. Supporting countries to move towards universal health coverage based on strong primary care is the best thing we can do to make sure no-one is left behind.”