Using the new $3-a-day line, the World Bank estimates that about 560 million people in sub-Saharan Africa live in extreme poverty, close to half the region's population and around two-thirds of the global total. Thirty years ago, most of the world's poorest lived in East and South Asia, which have since seen rapid growth.
That's the estimate from a WHO-led study published in The Lancet in 2024, covering the half-century since the Expanded Programme on Immunization was launched in 1974. It works out to about six lives saved every minute, mostly infants. The measles vaccine alone accounts for around 60% of those lives.
According to the World Gold Council, about 216,000 tonnes of gold have been mined in all of human history. Because gold is so dense (19.3 tonnes per cubic metre), it would fit in a cube about 22 metres on each side, roughly the height of a seven-storey building. Strikingly, about two-thirds of it has been mined since 1950.