GOAL 03 – GOOD HEALTH AND WELL-BEING

The third Sustainable Development Goal aims to ensure health and well-being to everyone, at all stages of life.

Until the end of 2019, a lot of progress was being made globally in the context of health, but it has not been enough to reach most of the objectives of this goal. Currently, the COVID-19 pandemic is hindering this progress.

The rapid increase in COVID-19 cases is causing significant loss of life and  overloaded many healthcare systems. Essential health services and life-saving interventions have been disrupted. People cannot or are afraid to reach health facilities to seek services, such as checkups, vaccinations, and even urgent medical care. This could have fatal consequences and potentially can reverse decades of improvements in this field.

In many countries, the outbreak is also raising alarms with regards to the state of preparation for health emergencies and immunization services. This is especially significant for those countries where the health systems are unable to cope with increased demand due to a lack of health workers, medical equipment and supplies.

The Goal number 3 covers several different targets. The first two targets of this goal are focused on the reduction of the global maternal mortality rate as well as the end of the avoidable deaths of infants and children under the age of 5. Progress has been made on a global scale: we have gone from 9.8 million children under the age of five who lost their lives in 2000, to 5.4 million in 2017.

Other targets of this goal are focused on ending the epidemics of AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and neglected tropical diseases, as well as fighting hepatitis, diseases related to water use and other transmissible diseases. Furthermore, there is a target that aims to strengthen the prevention and treatment of substance abuse, including drug abuse and the harmful use of alcohol.

Un altro target importante é quello che mira a dimezzare il numero di decessi a livello mondiale e le lesioni da Another important target is the one which aims to halve the number of deaths worldwide and injuries from road accidents. In Italy, after a sharp decline in 2016, the death rate from road accidents has since begun to increase again.