Anaemia affects nearly a third of the world's women of reproductive age and about two in five young children, and among women it has become more common, not less, since 2012.
Written from the sources listed below, not independently peer-reviewed.
WHO assessed progress towards halving anaemia among women aged 15–49 by 2030 in about 195 countries. How many were on track in its 2025 estimates?
30.7%
Women aged 15–49 with anaemia
About 605 million women, modelled estimate. Up from 27.6% in 2012, the baseline year for the global target.
Data year 2023. Source: World Health Organization, 2025
40%
Children aged 6–59 months with anaemia
About 269 million children. This is WHO's latest estimate for young children; it has not been updated since 2019.
Data year 2019. Source: World Health Organization, 2025
1
Countries on track for the 2030 target
Of about 195 countries assessed for women of reproductive age; 125 were getting worse.
Data year 2023. Source: World Health Organization, 2025
Modelled WHO estimates for pregnant and non-pregnant women combined; only the three years reported in the source are plotted. The 2023 value has a 95% uncertainty range of 26.6–34.9%. Prevalence in pregnant women fell from 40.3% in 2000 to 35.5% in 2023, while in non-pregnant women it has risen since 2012.
The World Health Assembly target was to halve anaemia among women aged 15–49 by 2025 compared with 2012; it has since been extended to 2030. Meeting it from the 2012 baseline would need prevalence to fall by about 3.78% a year. Instead, it rose from 27.6% in 2012 to 30.7% in 2023, and only 1 country was on track.
Women in WHO's African and South-East Asia regions make up more than 60% of all women of reproductive age with anaemia. In South-East Asia, 46.4% of women aged 15–49 had anaemia in 2023.
Source: World Health Organization, 2025Anaemia is more common in pregnancy: in 2023 it affected an estimated 35.5% of pregnant women, compared with 30.5% of non-pregnant women.
Source: World Health Organization, 2025In 2019 the African Region had an estimated 103 million children and 106 million women with anaemia, and the South-East Asia Region 83 million children and 244 million women.
Source: World Health Organization, 2025Within low- and lower-middle-income countries, the burden is greatest among people living in rural areas, in poorer households and with no formal education.
Source: World Health Organization, 2025Each country is shaded by its latest available value, so you can see where the gap is widest. Hover or tap a country, search for one, or open the full table.
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WHO modelled estimates for pregnant and non-pregnant women combined, for 2023 in every country shown. Small-sample countries rest heavily on the model and have wide uncertainty; 20% and 40% mark WHO's thresholds for a moderate and a severe public health problem.
Source: WHO Global Health Observatory, via World Bank Open Data. Latest year available per country; years differ.
Values load from World Bank Open Data. Simplified Natural Earth borders; they imply no position on disputed territories.
Instead of one “percent solved” score, DO GOOD rates three separate dimensions. A problem can have mature solutions that still reach too few people. These ratings are an editorial reading of the sources on this page, not a measured index.
Has the situation improved in the real world?
LowGlobal prevalence among women of reproductive age was higher in 2023 (30.7%) than in 2012 (27.6%), and 125 countries were classed as getting worse. Anaemia in pregnancy has fallen somewhat since 2000 but remains above a third.
How mature and validated are the available solutions?
ModerateIron and folic acid supplements, flour fortification, malaria control and deworming are well established, and WHO has clear recommendations for them. But they mainly address iron deficiency and infection, and validated, affordable approaches for the other causes and for low-resource diagnosis are less developed.
How widely are effective solutions actually used?
ModerateAntenatal iron and folic acid supplements are standard WHO advice and 86 countries mandate fortification of at least one milled grain. Global data on how many women actually take supplements or eat fortified foods are patchy, and newer treatments such as intravenous iron are rarely available in public health systems.
Estimates for women cover nearly every country and are updated, but they are model-based with wide uncertainty (26.6–34.9% for the 2023 global figure). Estimates for young children have not been updated since 2019.
Among women of reproductive age, prevalence has risen since 2012, driven by non-pregnant women, and WHO's projections show insufficient progress at global, regional and country level to reach the 2030 target.
Anaemia means the blood has too little haemoglobin, the protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen around the body. It commonly causes tiredness, dizziness, headaches and shortness of breath, and in pregnancy is linked to premature birth, low birth weight and maternal death. In young children, severe anaemia can hold back cognitive and motor development, with knock-on effects on schooling and, later, on earnings. WHO estimates that about 605 million women aged 15–49 had anaemia in 2023, and its latest estimate for children, from 2019, is 269 million children aged 6–59 months.
Anaemia has many causes. Iron deficiency, mostly from diets low in absorbable iron, is the most common nutritional cause, but infections such as malaria, hookworm and schistosomiasis, tuberculosis and HIV, inherited blood disorders such as sickle cell disease and thalassaemia, heavy menstrual bleeding and blood loss in childbirth also play a large part. The burden is heaviest in low- and lower-middle-income countries, especially in South-East Asia and Africa, and among women and children in rural areas, poorer households and families with no formal education. Because so many factors are involved, programmes that rely on iron alone have not been enough to bring rates down.
Anaemia is diagnosed with a blood test. Global figures come from national surveys that measure haemoglobin, combined in a statistical model that fills gaps between surveys and countries. The main elements are:
Haemoglobin thresholds
A person has anaemia when their haemoglobin falls below a cut-off that depends on age, sex and pregnancy. WHO's 2025 global estimates use the 1989 thresholds of 110 g/L for pregnant women and 120 g/L for non-pregnant women.
SDG indicator 2.2.3
The official measure for the Sustainable Development Goals is the share of women aged 15–49 with anaemia, reported separately for pregnant and non-pregnant women. It sits under target 2.2 on ending all forms of malnutrition.
Modelled national estimates
WHO uses a Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate a value for every country and year, covering 194 Member States and 3 areas. Countries with few recent surveys rely more heavily on the model, so their estimates carry wide uncertainty.
Public health severity
WHO classes anaemia as a mild public health problem when 5.0–19.9% of a group is affected, moderate at 20.0–39.9% and severe at 40% or more.
What works
WHO recommends that pregnant women take a daily supplement with 30–60 mg of iron and 400 µg of folic acid as part of antenatal care. It lowers the risk of iron deficiency and anaemia in pregnancy and aims to prevent low birth weight and preterm birth. Folic acid taken from before conception also helps prevent neural tube defects.
Limits
It reaches only women who attend antenatal care early and take tablets every day; side effects and the long daily course can reduce adherence. It does not treat anaemia caused by infection, inherited disorders or other deficiencies, and does nothing for women outside pregnancy.
What works
Adding iron and other micronutrients to industrially milled flour or rice reaches large numbers of people without asking them to change what they eat. As of August 2026, 86 countries had laws requiring fortification of at least one milled cereal grain, 85 of them covering wheat flour.
Limits
Many of the poorest rural households eat grain they grow and mill locally, which fortification laws do not reach. Benefits depend on mills complying with standards and on regular monitoring.
What works
Together with iron deficiency, malaria is one of the most commonly recognised causes of anaemia in low- and lower-middle-income settings. Preventing infection, for example with nets and preventive medicines, and treating cases promptly removes one of the main drivers for young children and pregnant women where malaria is common.
Limits
It only helps where malaria is common, and malaria programmes are usually planned and funded separately from nutrition services, so their contribution to anaemia reduction is seldom tracked.
What works
Hookworm and schistosomiasis cause chronic blood and nutrient loss. WHO advises preventing and treating these infections, together with handwashing and the use of clean toilets to reduce the risk of reinfection.
Limits
Reinfection is common where sanitation and safe water are lacking, so treatment must be repeated, and deworming alone has limited effect on anaemia where diet or other infections are the main drivers.
What works
Waiting at least 1 minute before clamping the umbilical cord after birth lets more blood flow to the baby and builds its iron stores. Waiting at least 24 months between pregnancies gives a mother's body time to restore its iron.
Limits
Both depend on skilled birth attendance and access to family planning, which are weakest where anaemia is most common.
Promising, but not proven at scale. The stage shows how far each approach has come; it is not a recommendation.
Newer intravenous iron products, such as ferric carboxymaltose, can replace iron stores in one infusion instead of weeks of tablets. A 2026 market landscape of 15 countries found evidence of procurement in 8 in 2025, mostly by the private sector, at end-user prices of roughly US$10–70 per 1,000 mg dose. Public procurement is largely absent because the products are often missing from essential medicines lists and national guidelines.
These supplements combine iron and folic acid with other vitamins and minerals in one daily tablet. WHO's current recommendation, updated in 2023, supports their use only in the context of rigorous implementation research, so most countries are still at the stage of studies and pilot programmes before deciding whether to switch.
WHO and UNICEF are setting up an Anaemia Action Alliance to support countries in putting WHO's anaemia framework into practice, tackling the different causes of anaemia together rather than through separate programmes. Whether this approach achieves faster declines than separate programmes has not yet been shown.
Knowledge gap
Infections, inflammation, inherited blood disorders, other nutrient deficiencies and gynaecological and obstetric conditions all contribute, but most anaemia efforts have centred on iron. In many places it is not known what share of anaemia each cause explains.
Technology gap
Many health facilities in low- and middle-income countries test haemoglobin inconsistently and lack the capacity to tell iron deficiency from other causes, so women and children are missed or given the wrong treatment.
Implementation gap
Intravenous iron is often missing from guidelines and essential medicines lists, is registered in few countries and costs roughly US$10–70 per dose in the private sector, so it rarely reaches the women who need it most.
Implementation gap
Daily supplements depend on early antenatal care and on women taking tablets for months, and fortification misses households that do not buy industrially milled flour or rice.
Coordination gap
Reducing anaemia needs nutrition, malaria, deworming, water and sanitation, reproductive health and education programmes to work together, yet each is usually funded and monitored separately, and few track anaemia as an outcome.
Knowledge gap
WHO's 2025 update covers only women; the most recent global estimates for children aged 6–59 months date from 2019, so it is unclear how children have fared since.
Unresolved questions, not vetted breakthroughs. Answering any of them would change what is possible.
Prevalence among non-pregnant women has increased since 2012 and no WHO region has made progress for this group. Is this due to changes in diet, infections, obesity-related inflammation, survey methods or other factors, and does the answer differ by country?
How much anaemia in a given district is due to iron deficiency, malaria, worms, inherited disorders or inflammation, and can cheap tests or surveys reveal this well enough to target the right mix of interventions?
How can iron be given to young children and pregnant women where malaria is common so that it corrects deficiency without increasing the risk of infection, and how should screening and malaria control be combined with it?
Can single-dose intravenous iron be given safely and affordably at lower-level health facilities in low-income countries, and does it improve outcomes for mothers and babies compared with tablets at scale?
Persistent tiredness, breathlessness or pale skin can be signs of anaemia, especially in pregnancy or with heavy periods. A simple blood test can confirm it; take iron supplements only when a qualified health worker recommends them.
If you donate, look for organisations that combine antenatal care, nutrition, malaria prevention or deworming, and that publish independent evaluations of their results.
Where you live, staple foods may or may not be fortified. Supporting well-enforced fortification standards and funding for maternal and child nutrition through your elected representatives is one way to influence the wider picture.
Many people do not know that anaemia is common, often treatable and linked to pregnancy outcomes. Sharing reliable guidance, such as WHO's, helps counter both neglect and the overuse of supplements.
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World Health Organization, published 2025
WHO's 16-page brief of 15 August 2025 (ISBN 978-92-4-011393-0; publication page https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240113930), linked here via the Medbox mirror of the WHO PDF because WHO's repository blocks direct downloads. Source of prevalence among women aged 15–49 in 2000, 2012 and 2023 (29.3%, 27.6%, 30.7%), the 604.8 million women affected, pregnant and non-pregnant prevalence, regional figures, the country progress classes (1 on track, 125 worsening), the required 3.78% annual reduction, the 1989 haemoglobin thresholds, the severity categories, the model and the note that child estimates date from 2019.
World Health Organization (10 February 2025), published 2025
Source of the 2019 estimates for children aged 6–59 months (40%, 269 million) and the regional numbers of women and children, the causes (iron deficiency, malaria, hookworm, schistosomiasis, inherited disorders), consequences, the groups most affected, and the advice on delayed cord clamping (not earlier than 1 minute) and spacing pregnancies by at least 24 months.
World Health Organization, e-Library of Evidence for Nutrition Actions (eLENA), last updated 26 July 2024, published 2024
WHO's recommendation of a daily supplement with 30–60 mg of elemental iron and 400 µg of folic acid for pregnant women, its aims, and the start of folic acid before conception.
World Health Organization, e-Library of Evidence for Nutrition Actions (eLENA), last updated 9 August 2023, published 2023
WHO's recommendation that antenatal multiple micronutrient supplements containing iron and folic acid be used in the context of rigorous research.
Food Fortification Initiative, published 2026
Source of the count of 86 countries with legislation mandating fortification of at least one industrially milled cereal grain, 85 of them including wheat flour.
Clinton Health Access Initiative, published 2026
Landscape of intravenous iron for maternal anaemia in 15 countries. Source of procurement evidence in 8 countries in 2025, private-sector prices of about US$10–70 per 1,000 mg dose, and barriers including limited diagnosis, absence from essential medicines lists and largely nonexistent public procurement. A programme assessment by an implementing organisation, not a peer-reviewed study.
DO GOOD International (2026). Reducing Anaemia. Global Challenges. Updated October 15, 2026. https://www.dogood.world/challenges/anaemia
For figures, please cite the original sources listed above.