Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump has effectively announced plans to freeze foreign aid funds and dismantle the US Organization for International Development (USAID) and other programs, and leave the WHO.
Washington, the WHO's largest donor for a long time, did not pay the 2024 membership fee, so it remains unclear whether the US will meet its 2025 membership obligations
According to a previous AFP report citing internal emails, agents, who are already facing a major deficit this year, suggest that they are likely to cut their budgets for the fifth time, cutting their reach and labor.
“WHO partners play an important role in maintaining the health system, rehabilitating the health system, training and dispatching emergency medical teams, and pre-positioning trauma kits,” Hannan Balky, WHO Regional Director of the Eastern Mediterranean, told AFP.
“Many of these programs are currently suspended or cannot continue,” she said. Fundraising cuts are likely to hinder our ability to continue providing robust assistance to our communities with a desperate need for care.
In the Gaza Strip, where the public health situation is dire with more than a year and a half fighting, large strips of Palestinian territory being reduced to tile rubs, the public health situation is dire.
“Supporting emergency medical teams, procurement of medication, rehabilitation of medical facilities. All of these were immediately affected by the freeze on US support,” Balky said.
In Sudan, the WHO is facing problems, with several areas struggling with at least three different disease outbreaks amid a bloody civil war that has evacuated millions of people.
“We are working vital to identify emergent and re-emerging pathogens to keep Sudanese people safe, to keep the world safe, and therefore impact our ability to continue surveillance and detect diseases,” she added.
The US from WHO undermines long established communication channels with major US-based research facilities, universities and public health institutions.
It is likely to hinder the easy sharing of information and research, which is crucial to avoid global public health crises like the new pandemic, Balky said.
“These bacteria and viruses, number one, don't know the border. Second, they're vague about what's happening in the human political landscape.”