Hearing loss affects more than 1.5 billion people worldwide. Close to 80% live in low - and middle - income countries, where hearing care is out of reach for most. In Africa, an estimated 136 million people live with hearing loss, a figure expected to more than double to 337 million by 2050. Yet fewer than 2% of people on the continent who need a hearing aid have one.
This shortfall is not a minor inconvenience but a major public health crisis. Left unaddressed, hearing loss drives costs across healthcare, education and productivity, falling hardest on children, whose language development and schooling depend on being able to hear. A 2024 Lancet Commission report identified it as one of the largest modifiable risk factors for dementia. The World Health Organization puts the annual global cost of unaddressed hearing loss at close to a trillion US dollars (page 10).
