Who: Alcohol causes 2.6 million deaths a year

The World Health Organization says alcohol causes 2.6 million deaths a year, and while the death rate has fallen slightly in recent years, it remains "unacceptably high."

In its latest report on alcohol and health, the United Nations Health Organization (WHO) said Tuesday that alcohol is responsible for one in 20 deaths a year, including drunk driving, alcohol-related violence and abuse, and a host of diseases, AFP reported.

The report said 2.6 million people died from alcohol use in 2019, accounting for 4.7 percent of all global deaths that year, and nearly three-quarters of them were men.

People aged 20 to 39 had the highest proportion of alcohol-related deaths in 2019, at 13%.

According to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, alcohol use seriously damages individual health, increases the risk of chronic disease and mental health, and causes millions of preventable deaths every year.

He noted that global alcohol consumption and related harms have decreased since 2010, but "the health and social burden of alcohol consumption remains unacceptably high."

Alcohol consumption has been linked to a range of health conditions, including cirrhosis of the liver and certain cancers.

The report found that of all deaths caused in 2019, an estimated 1.6 million were due to non-communicable diseases. Among them, 474,000 died from cardiovascular disease and 401,000 from cancer.

Alcohol abuse also makes people more susceptible to infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV and pneumonia, according to the report.

In 2019, an estimated 200,900 people worldwide were dependent on alcohol, accounting for 3.7% of the global population. Europe consumed the most alcohol per capita at 9.2 liters, followed by the Americas at 7.5 liters.