Fighting NCDs With One Hand While Feeding Them With The Other: WHO

Even as the majority of governments across the world are vouching for universal health coverage and rolling out ambitious programmes to tackle rising non-communicable diseases (NCDs), particularly taking a toll on poor people, a troubling contradiction persists. On the one hand, public health systems are being strengthened to manage diabetes, heart disease, cancers and obesity. On the other, the easy availability of low-tax sugary drinks and alcoholic beverages continues to quietly fuel the very epidemics policymakers claim to be fighting.

Two recent global reports by the World Health Organization (WHO) have laid bare this policy inconsistency. Sugary drinks and alcohol, the reports warn, are becoming more affordable in most countries because taxes remain weak, poorly designed, or fail to keep pace with inflation and income growth. The result is rising consumption, particularly among children and young adults, and a mounting burden of preventable disease that health systems are left to absorb.

“Health taxes are one of the strongest tools we have for promoting health and preventing disease,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “By increasing taxes on products like tobacco, sugary drinks and alcohol, governments can reduce harmful consumption and unlock funds for vital health services.”

The stakes could not be higher. The combined global market for sugary drinks and alcoholic beverages generates billions of dollars in profits annually. Yet governments capture only a fraction of this value through health-oriented taxation. The imbalance is stark: while corporations benefit from steady consumption, societies pay the price through rising healthcare costs, lost productivity and premature deaths.

The WHO’s findings reveal glaring gaps. At least 116 countries now tax sugary drinks, most commonly carbonated sodas. However, many high-sugar products — including 100% fruit juices, flavoured milk drinks, and ready-to-drink coffees and teas — often escape taxation altogether. Even where taxes exist, they are typically modest. Globally, the median tax on a common sugary soda accounts for only about 2% of its retail price, far too low to meaningfully influence consumer behaviour.

Alcohol taxation fares a little better. While 167 countries levy some form of tax on alcoholic beverages, and 12 ban alcohol entirely, affordability has increased or remained unchanged in most regions since 2022. Taxes have failed to keep pace with inflation, rising incomes and aggressive marketing. Wine, despite clear evidence of health risks, remains untaxed in at least 25 countries, largely in Europe.

“More affordable alcohol drives violence, injuries and disease,” warned Dr. Etienne Krug, Director of WHO’s Department of Health Determinants, Promotion and Prevention. “While industry profits, the public often carries the health consequences and society the economic costs.”

Globally, excise tax shares remain low — with median rates of about 14% for beer and 22.5% for spirits. In contrast, health experts argue that taxes must be high enough to deter consumption, not merely generate revenue. Equally concerning is the failure of most countries to adjust these taxes for inflation, allowing health-harming products to become progressively cheaper over time, said the report.

For countries like India, grappling with a sharp rise in obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, the implications are particularly serious. Sugary beverages and alcohol are aggressively marketed, increasingly affordable, and widely consumed by younger populations. This comes even as the public sector spends heavily on managing advanced-stage complications of NCDs — from dialysis and cardiac care to cancer treatment.

Public has always supported taxes on such items. A 2022 Gallup Poll found that a majority of people surveyed favoured higher taxes on alcohol and sugary drinks. WHO is now urging governments to act through its “3 by 35” initiative, which calls for raising the real prices of tobacco, alcohol and sugary drinks by 2035 to reduce affordability and protect population health.