By early 2023, nations reported experiencing reduced disruptions in the delivery of routine health services, but praised the pressing need to invest in recovery and stronger resilience for the future.

Among the 139 countries that responded to the fourth round of WHO’s pulse survey, countries reported continued disruptions in almost one-quarter of services on average. In 84 countries where trend analysis is possible, the percentage of disrupted services declined on average from 56% in July-September 2020 to 23% in November 2022- January 2023.

Persisting disruptions are due to both demand- and supply-side factors, including low levels of health care-seeking in communities as well as limited availability of health workers and other health-care resources such as open clinics or available stocks of medicines and products.

In this new survey, fewer countries reported intentionally scaling back access across all service delivery platforms and essential public health functions since 2020-2021 reporting, showing an important step to return to pre-pandemic levels of service delivery and broader system functioning.

“It is welcome news that health systems in the majority of countries are starting to restore essential health services for millions of people who missed them during the pandemic,” said Dr. Rudi Eggers, WHO Director for Integrated Health Services. “But we need to ensure that all countries continue to close this gap to recover health services, and apply lessons learnt to build more prepared and resilient health systems for the future”.

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