Cost containment, reorganised budgets: How WHO is adapting to US funding cuts

At a press conference on Monday, WHO officials laid out the many ways countries around the world are being impacted in real-time by the US withdrawal of crucial humanitarian aid funds.

The impacts are being felt on the heels of the Trump administration’s rapid dismantling of USAID, a key agency that oversees humanitarian, development and security programs in some 120 countries. Global health experts say that USAID has practiced a form of soft power around the world.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus would not comment on Trump's decision to withdraw the US from the WHO. Instead, he focused on the “serious disruptions” being caused by cuts through USAID. “In many countries, the abrupt loss of U.S. funding threatens to reverse progress,” Tedros  said, on many issues from immunisations to maternal health to emergency preparedness.

For instance, the USA has been the largest contributor to the fight against malaria over the past two decades, Tedros said. If cuts continue, there could be an additional 15 million cases of malaria and 107,000 deaths in 2025. A similar story is happening with HIV, he said: suspension of U.S. funding could lead to an additional 10 million cases of HIV and 3 million unnecessary deaths.

Gains made in tuberculosis, immunisations and polio are similarly at risk. 

“It’s within its rights to decide what it supports and to what extent, but the US 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 if funding. We ask the US to reconsider its support for global health,” Tedros said. 

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Source: Fierce Healthcare, 17 March 2025