New-Delhi: The World Health Organization (WHO) said that alcohol kills nearly three million people annually.
The United Nations health agency’s latest report on alcohol and health said alcohol causes nearly one in 20 deaths globally each year, through drunk driving, violence and abuse and of diseases.
According to the latest available statistics from 2019, alcohol consumption was responsible for 2.6 million deaths globally accounting for 4.7 per cent of all deaths. Nearly three-quarters of those fatalities occured in men.
“Substance use severely harms individual health, increasing the risk of chronic diseases, mental health conditions, and tragically resulting in millions of preventable deaths every year,” WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. He pointed out that there had been “some reduction in alcohol consumption and related harm worldwide since 2010”.
In 2019, the highest proportion of alcohol-attributable deaths were among people aged 20 to 39, the WHO said.
Of these, 474,000 were from cardiovascular diseases, 401,000 from cancer and a 724,000 from injuries, including traffic accidents and harming self.
