Preventable deaths since 1990

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One person dies every 3.3 seconds from causes we already know how to prevent

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The Numbers

Since 1990, an estimated more than 350 million people have died from preventable causes — diseases, malnutrition, childbirth complications — that wealthy nations solved decades ago.

We don't lack solutions. We just aren't deploying the ones we already have.

Annual Toll

Children Under 5
4.2 million per year
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~1 every 7.5 seconds
Maternal Deaths
388,000 per year
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~1 every 81 seconds
Treatable Diseases
4 million per year
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~1 every 8 seconds

We have the technology. We have the institutions to deploy it. We merely lack the political will.

Every year we shave off the timeline of making basic infrastructure and industry available to the whole world saves millions of lives.

Under capitalism, the incentives aren't aligned behind this goal — even though a project on a global scale to make these investments would wildly expand the profits of capitalist enterprises.

How People Are Dying

What if we go further back?

See estimates since 1900

Methodology

We compared mortality rates in developing countries against the rates achieved by the world's healthiest nations (Japan, Iceland, Norway). The gap represents deaths that are preventable with existing technology and infrastructure. Rates are interpolated based on UN IGME and World Bank data, with adjustments for declining trends over time.