WHO Report 2025 – Universal Health Coverage – Part 1 – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1196

WHO Report 2025 – Universal Health Coverage – Part 1 – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1196

Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1196 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com. Please email to pharmaveterans2017@gmail.com  for publishing your contributions here.

Credit: Jermain Ulinwa

Credit: Anna Shvets

Preamble

This 2-part blog post is based on WHO report on Universal Health Coverage (UHC) 2025. To access full report, use this link. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240117815 

Part I — “Where We Stand in 2025: Global Progress and Gaps toward Universal Health Coverage”

The principle of universal health coverage (UHC), that everyone, everywhere should have access to essential health services without financial hardship, remains one of the most ambitious and morally compelling goals in global health. The 2025 global monitoring report by WHO and the World Bank offers a fresh vantage point: how far have we come? Where are we still falling short? And what the data reveal about inequities, capacity gaps, and the uphill path ahead.

The Promise – A Shared Global Vision

Universal health coverage represents a cornerstone of global health equity. It means that a pregnant woman in rural Africa, a factory worker in South Asia, an elderly person in Eastern Europe, regardless of nationality, income, or geography, can access quality care: prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, and palliative services.

UHC is not only a moral imperative, but a foundation for social stability, economic productivity, and sustainable development. Healthy populations are more resilient, more productive, less vulnerable to crises. Recognizing this, WHO and the World Bank have over the past decade prioritized UHC monitoring, encouraging nations to expand access, reduce out-of-pocket spending, and invest in essential health services.

That commitment continues. The 2025 report emerges in a world still reeling from pandemics, climate shocks, economic uncertainty, underscoring that broad, equitable access to health care is no longer optional; it is essential.

What the 2025 Report Covers

According to the report’s scope: the global monitoring includes both service coverage (access to essential health services: preventive, treatment, rehabilitative, palliative) and financial protection (risk of financial hardship due to medical expenses).

Service coverage, measured using tracer indicators across population groups: e.g., immunization, maternal and newborn care, treatment for communicable and noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), access to essential medicines and diagnostics, mental health care, and more.

 Financial protection, illnesses should not translate into catastrophic expenditure or push families into poverty. The report tracks share of households experiencing out-of-pocket spending beyond defined thresholds, and how many forgo care due to cost.

By combining both dimensions, coverage and financial protection, the report offers a holistic assessment of UHC progress.

Key Global Findings: Progress – But Not Enough

Gains: More People Covered, More Services Delivered

Over the last decade, many countries have expanded basic service coverage significantly. Vaccination rates, maternal and child health interventions, and access to primary care have improved across large swathes of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

Preventive services such as immunization, antenatal care, and essential maternal-child nutrition services have seen notable uptake, partly due to global funding initiatives (e.g., Gavi, UNICEF, WHO), but heavily reliant on national adoption and capacity building.

In certain countries, coverage of treatments for communicable diseases (like HIV, TB, malaria) improved, thanks to international programs and domestic health-system strengthening, bringing hope that preventable deaths can decline.

These improvements reflect decades of investment, international cooperation, and, in many cases, the will of national governments to prioritize public health.

Gaps: Wide Inequalities, Growing Non-Communicable Disease (NCD) Crisis, and Access Disparities

But the 2025 report makes clear: progress is uneven. Key challenges remain:

Inequality across and within countries: Access still correlates strongly with wealth, geography, and social status. Rural populations, marginalized communities, migrants, and the urban poor are disproportionately underserved. While national averages may look promising, disaggregated data reveal stark inequities.

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) have emerged as a major barrier. While communicable disease control and maternal-child health have seen gains, coverage of NCD-related services, e.g., hypertension screening and treatment, diabetes management, cancer care, mental health services, remains inadequate. Many health systems lack infrastructure, trained personnel, diagnostics, and supply chains to address NCD burden.

Essential medicines and diagnostics remain out of reach for many, especially in low-income regions. Stock-outs, weak supply chains, high costs, and weak regulatory systems hinder access. As a result, even when services are nominally “available,” actual access remains unreliable.

Financial barriers persist: Households in many countries still experience catastrophic health expenditure. For some, the fear or reality of high out-of-pocket payments leads to delaying or foregoing care, especially for chronic or long-term conditions, which compounds inequity and undermines public health outcomes.

In short, as more people survive childhood diseases and acute illnesses, a new health burden, chronic illnesses, disabilities, mental health, is rising, and systems are not yet ready.

Fragilities Exposed: Post-Pandemic, Climate Stress & Resource Constraints

The 2025 report also reflects on how recent global crises have strained progress towards UHC:

Pandemic aftermath: The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted health services worldwide, routine immunizations, maternal care, screenings, preventive services. Many countries diverted resources to emergency response. In several places, service coverage deteriorated; recovery remains uneven.

Economic pressures and austerity: With tight budgets, fiscal constraints, inflation, and shifting donor priorities, many LMICs face cuts to public health spending. This puts UHC progress at risk, especially long-term investments in human resources, infrastructure, and supply chains.

Climate change and environmental health impacts: Climate-related disasters, floods, storms, heatwaves, have damaged health infrastructure, disrupted care, and caused disease outbreaks. Vulnerable populations face compounded risks: lack of access to clean water, sanitation, and basic services, undermining UHC objectives.

These overlapping crises, public health, economic, environmental, expose the fragility of health systems built primarily to address infectious diseases and acute care.

The Global Picture: Mixed Progress, Uneven Realities

Thus, the 2025 global monitoring paints a mixed but sobering picture: significant progress, especially in preventive and maternal–child health; but major structural gaps remain in coverage of NCDs and chronic conditions, equitable access, financial protection, reliability of supply chains, and resilience to external shocks.

For many low- and lower-middle–income countries, UHC remains a promise rather than a reality. Without strategic, sustained, and equitable investment, recent gains risk being reversed.

To be Concluded…

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