Health expenditure per capita and in relation to GDP

Across Asia-Pacific countries, per capita health spending continued to rise prior to the COVID‑19 pandemic. Low- and lower-middle‑income Asia-Pacific countries per capita health spending increased by 65% between 2010 and 2019, while in upper middle countries it grew by 76% during the same period spending in high-income countries also grew, but more modestly at 33%. Despite this, huge differences in per capita health care spending remained in Asia-Pacific countries in 2019 (), ranging from only 105 international dollars (USD PPPs) in Bangladesh to 5 294 international dollars (USD PPPs) in Australia. For comparison, average OECD current health spending per capita in 2019 was around 15 times that of the low-income countries in Asia-Pacific (4 353 versus 286 USD PPPs).