Russia to outdo life expectancy plan in 2022 - health minister

MOSCOW. Nov 22 (Interfax) - Russia will outdo the life expectancy plan in 2022, Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said.

"We have fallen below the 2019 level by mortality rates. The life expectancy plan will definitely be outdone by the end of this year," Murashko said at a meeting of the Russian Communist Party's faction in the State Duma on Tuesday.

According to the national development goals, life expectancy in Russia will reach 78 years by 2030.

Deputy head of the Russian Health Ministry's department for medical assistance and health resorts Valeria Gulshina said at a congress of cancer patients on October 19 that life expectancy in Russia decreased by 3.3 years over two years of the coronavirus pandemic.

Back then, assistant to the Russian health minister Alexei Kuznetsov said that mortality rates in Russia returned to the pre-pandemic level. "Better organization and provision of medical aid to patients with chronic non-infectious conditions have helped regain pre-pandemic mortality levels in the second half of 2022," Kuznetsov told reporters on October 19.

"According to expert estimates, life expectancy has been growing in 2022 and may top 71.03 years at the end of this year, as envisaged by the unified plan for the achievement of national development goals in the period until 2024 and the prospective period until 2030," he said.