India, Oct. 4 -- People around the world are living longer again, with global life expectancy almost fully recovered from the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday.

According to the UN health agency's latest Global Health Estimates, life expectancy reached 73.3 years in 2023, just shy of the 73.4 years recorded in 2019.

"Living longer is one of the great achievements of public health," said Dr. Alain Labrique, Director of WHO's Department of Data, Digital Health, Analytics and AI.

Healthy life expectancy - the years people live in good health - has recovered more slowly, reaching 62.8 years in 2023, still 0.4 years below its 2019 level.

"The next challenge is to ensure that those addit...