On new health index, Sri Lanka ranks 79/188

A new index developed to assess each country’s achievement on a range of health indicators ranks Sri Lanka at 79 in a list of 188 countries.

The first global analysis that assesses countries on sustainable development goal (SDG) health performance was launched at a special event at the UN General Assembly Wednesday and published online in The Lancet.

The study by an international collaboration on the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) analysed each country’s progress towards achieving health-related SDG targets by creating an overall SDG Index score. Countries were then ranked by their scores to show which nations are closest to achieving the targets.

A nation’s SDG index score is based on a scale of zero to 100. In 2015, Iceland topped the overall list with a score of 85. The nation with the lowest score was the Central African Republic — 20. The United States had a score of 75, just behind Slovenia, Greece and Japan, all at 76. India’s score was 42. The US was ranked 28, above Estonia and New Zealand, while UK was rank 5.

One of the health-related indicators is malaria. Countries like Sri Lanka, Iraq, Syria, Libya and others that have eliminated malaria scored 100 on that health indicator while India registered only 10 points.

Source: Indian Express

-Agencies