Dominican Republic life expectancy among region’s lowest

Santo Domingo.- Human beings live an average of 5.5 years longer now than at the beginning of this century, since global life expectancy has gone from 66.5 to 72 years, but this and other advances could be reduced with the pandemic, a World Health Organization (WHO) report warns Wed, Efe reports.

The World Health Statistics published annually by the organization, which don’t yet include data on 2020 and therefore do not show the impact of the coronavirus, indicate advances that are nonetheless threatened by the pandemic, the WHO stressed when presenting the new data.

“People have longer and healthier lives, the downside is that progress is too slow to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and that it will backtrack with COVID-19,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.

In Latin America: Costa Rica (79,6), Cuba (79), Panamá (78), Bolivia (71.5), Guatemala (73.2), Dominican Republic (73.5).