Around 372,000 people a year die through drowning with the vast bulk of those occurring in the world’s poorer countries

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Each year 372,441 people die due to drowning, according to a new report by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Of those deaths, 90% occur in lower and middle income countries. It is the world’s third leading unintentional injury killer.

Particularly at risk are those aged under 24, for whom drowning is one of the ten leading causes of death in every region in the world.

The WHO define drowning as: “the process of experiencing respiratory impairment from submission/immersion in liquid.”

Its death toll is about half that of malaria and two thirds that of malnutrition, but unlike those public health issues there are no targeted large scale efforts at combating drowning.

The chart below looks at how deaths by drowning are distributed across lower and middle income countries in the different regions of the world.