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https://www.statnews.com/2025/03/17/world-health-organization-director-s...
WHO issues starkest warning yet on fallout from U.S. withdrawal of aid for global health. Trump moves will vastly undercut efforts to combat HIV, measles, and other diseases, agency says
The World Health Organization on Monday (17 Masrch) issued its starkest warning yet on the consequences of the abrupt cessation of U.S. global health funding, saying it is threatening to reverse years of progress in the fight against diseases like HIV, tuberculosis, and measles.
Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called on the Trump administration to reconsider its withdrawal of funding for international aid programs...
“The U.S. administration has been extremely generous over many years. And of course it’s within its rights to decide what it supports and to what extent,” Tedros said during a news conference in Geneva. “But the U.S. also has a responsibility to ensure that if it withdraws direct funding for countries, it’s done in an orderly and humane way that allows them to find alternative sources of funding...”
Over the last two decades the U.S. has been the largest bilateral donor in the fight against malaria, the WHO director-general said — work that has helped to avert an estimated 2.2 billion cases and 12.7 million deaths.
“If disruptions continue we could see an additional 15 million cases of malaria and 107,000 deaths this year alone, reversing 15 years of progress,” he said.
Tedros prefaced his remarks by saying he was not speaking about the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the WHO, announced on the day of President Trump’s inauguration.
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org