The World Health Organization (WHO) today released new guidance for countries on ways to counter the immediate and long-term effects of sudden and severe cuts to external funding, which are disrupting the delivery of essential health services in many countries.
The new guidance, called “Responding to the health financing emergency: immediate measures and longer-term shifts”, provides a suite of policy options for countries to cope with the sudden financing shocks, and bolster efforts to mobilize and implement sufficient and sustainable financing for national health systems.
External health aid is projected to drop by 30% to 40% in 2025 compared with 2023, causing immediate and severe disruption to health services in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). WHO survey data from 108 LMICs collected in March 2025 indicate that funding cuts have reduced critical services – including maternal care, vaccination, health emergency preparedness and response, and disease surveillance – by up to 70% in some countries. More than 50 countries have reported job losses among health and care workers, along with major disruptions to health worker training programmes.
“Sudden and unplanned cuts to aid have hit many countries hard, costing lives and jeopardizing hard-won health gains,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “But in the crisis lies an opportunity for countries to transition away from aid dependency towards sustainable self-reliance, based on domestic resources. WHO’s new guidance will help countries to better mobilize, allocate, prioritize and use funds to support the delivery of health services that protect the most vulnerable.”
This year’s funding cuts have compounded years of persistent health financing challenges for countries, including rising debt burdens, inflation, economic uncertainty, high out-of-pocket spending, systemic budget underfunding and heavy reliance on external aid.
WHO’s new guidance urges policy-makers to make health a political and fiscal priority in government budgets even during times of crisis, seeing health spending as not merely a cost to be contained, but an investment in social stability, human dignity, and economic resilience.
The guidance emphasizes the need for countries to cushion the immediate impact of reductions in foreign assistance for health, and to adapt to a new era of reduced assistance. Key policy recommendations include:
Several countries have already taken decisive action to strengthen their health systems and protect essential health services:
The new guidance builds on WHO’s commitment to help all countries strengthen and sustain robust health systems, built on a commitment to universal health coverage, underpinned by strong primary health services delivering essential care to all who need it.
It also aligns with existing World Health Assembly mandates, including resolutions on “Strengthening health financing globally” and “Economics of health for all,” to translate global commitments into actionable policy steps. WHO and its partners are committed to providing technical support, analytics and peer learning to countries to manage the health financing crises and navigate the transition, including through the new UHC Knowledge Hub, a partnership with the Government of Japan and the World Bank, set to be launched in December 2025.
The World Health Organization (WHO) condemns the reported killing of more than 460 patients and their companions, as well as the abduction of six health workers, on 28 October from the Saudi Maternity Hospital in El Fasher.
This latest tragedy is taking place in the rapidly worsening crisis in North Darfur’s El Fasher, where escalating violence, siege conditions and rising hunger and disease are killing civilians, including children, and collapsing an already-fragile health system.
On 26 October, Saudi Maternity Hospital, the only partially functioning hospital in El Fasher, was attacked for the fourth time in a month, killing one nurse and injuring three other health workers. On 28 October, six health workers, four doctors, a nurse and a pharmacist, were abducted. On the same day, more than 460 patients and their companions were reportedly shot and killed in the hospital.
Since the conflict began, 46 health workers have been killed in El Fasher – among them the Director of Primary Health Care in the State Ministry of Health – and another 48 injured. The status of personnel working in three nongovernmental organizations in El Fasher remains unknown. WHO condemns these horrific attacks on health care in the strongest terms and calls for the respect of the sanctity of health care as mandated under International Humanitarian Law.
More than 260 000 people remain trapped in El Fasher with almost no access to food, clean water, or medical care. Escalating violence has forced about 28 000 people to flee El Fasher Town in recent days, 26 000 of them to rural areas of El Fasher and up to 2000 to Tawila. Over 100 000 more people are expected to move to Tawila in the coming days and weeks, adding to the 575 000 already displaced from El Fasher who are sheltering there and other areas. Many of the displaced are women and unaccompanied children facing acute shortages of shelter, protection, food, water, and health care.
In addition to violence, and the lack of basic essentials for life and health, cholera continues to spread rapidly in El Fasher as people lack access to safe water. Disease surveillance and response activities are reduced as a result of the deteriorating security situation. This year alone, El Fasher has reported 272 suspected cases of cholera and 32 deaths, an alarming case fatality rate of nearly 12%. Across Darfur, 18 468 cases and 662 deaths have been recorded in 40 localities.
El Fasher has been cut off from humanitarian aid since February 2025, and malnutrition is rising sharply, especially among children and pregnant women, weakening immunity and heightening vulnerability to cholera, malaria, and other infectious diseases. Many families have exhausted food stocks or lost access to markets.
Despite access restrictions to El Fasher, WHO teams are working around the clock to keep health services running where possible, particularly in areas where people displaced by insecurity arrive. Twenty metric tons of WHO medicines and emergency kits, including supplies for cholera and management of severe acute malnutrition with medical complications, are being moved from Nyala to Tawila to support medical and rapid-response teams providing care for displaced people. Health supplies handed over to partners at Abeche, Chad, are being fast-tracked for delivery to Tawila and other gathering locations.
WHO is coordinating with health partners at reception sites in Korma, located between El Fasher and Tawila, to stabilize critically ill and injured people and facilitate referrals to Tawila. WHO is also preparing to deploy rapid response teams within Tawila and surrounding localities to respond to the urgent health needs of those arriving from El Fasher. WHO trucks are on standby in Darfur to join a UN aid convoy carrying food, medicines, and lifesaving health supplies into El Fasher as soon as access opens.
WHO calls for an immediate end to hostilities in El Fasher and all of Sudan; for the protection of civilians, humanitarian workers, and health care; and safe, rapid, and unimpeded humanitarian access to deliver lifesaving aid.
WHO and global partners are calling for the protection of people’s health to be recognized as the most powerful driver of climate action, as a new global report released today warns that continued overreliance on fossil fuels and failure to adapt to a heating world are already having a devastating toll on human health.
The 2025 report of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change, produced in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), finds that 12 of 20 key indicators tracking health threats have reached record levels, showing how climate inaction is costing lives, straining health systems, and undermining economies.
“The climate crisis is a health crisis. Every fraction of a degree of warming costs lives and livelihoods,” said Dr Jeremy Farrar, Assistant Director-General for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention and Care at the World Health Organization. “This report, produced with WHO as a strategic partner, makes clear that climate inaction is killing people now in all countries. However, climate action is also the greatest health opportunity of our time. Cleaner air, healthier diets, and resilient health systems can save millions of lives now and protect current and future generations.”
“We already have the solutions at hand to avoid a climate catastrophe – and communities and local governments around the world are proving that progress is possible. From clean energy growth to city adaptation, action is underway and delivering real health benefits – but we must keep up the momentum,” said Dr Marina Romanello, Executive Director of the Lancet Countdown at University College London. “Rapidly phasing out fossil fuels in favour of clean renewable energy and efficient energy use remains the most powerful lever to slow climate change and protect lives. At the same time, shifting to healthier, climate-friendly diets and more sustainable agricultural systems would massively cut pollution, greenhouse gases and deforestation, potentially saving over ten million lives a year.”
While some governments have slowed their climate commitments, the report shows that cities, communities and the health sector are leading the way. Nearly all reporting cities (834 of 858) have completed or plan to complete climate risk assessments. The energy transition is delivering cleaner air, healthier jobs, measurable economic growth and inward investment.
The health sector itself has shown impressive climate leadership, with health-related greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions falling 16% globally between 2021 and 2022, while improving care quality.
Data submitted by WHO show that a growing number of health systems are assessing risks and preparing for the dangerous future that's coming. Fifty-eight per cent of Member States have completed a health Vulnerability and Adaptation assessment and 60% have completed a Health National Adaptation Plan.
As the world prepares for COP30 in Belém, Brazil, the findings of the 2025 Global Report of the Lancet Countdown provide a key evidence base for accelerating health-centered climate action. WHO will build on this momentum through the forthcoming COP30 Special Report on Climate Change and Health, a collaborative effort highlighting the policies and investments needed to protect health, equity, and deliver the Belém Action Plan that is the expected landmark outcome of COP30.
The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change was established in partnership with Wellcome, which continues to provide core financial support. The Lancet Countdown is led by University College London, in partnership with WHO and 71 academic institutions and UN agencies worldwide. Now in its ninth year, the report provides the most comprehensive assessment of the health impacts of climate change and the co-benefits of urgent action, ahead of COP30 in Brazil.
In a landmark public health achievement, Fiji has been validated by the World Health Organization (WHO) for eliminating trachoma as a public health problem. Trachoma, a neglected tropical disease (NTD) and the world’s leading infectious cause of blindness, no longer poses a public health threat in the country.
Trachoma is the first NTD to be eliminated in Fiji. Fiji is the 26th country to eliminate trachoma as a public health problem and the 58th country globally to eliminate at least one NTD.
“WHO congratulates Fiji and its network of global and local partners on reaching this milestone,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “Future generations of Fijians have been given a precious gift in being set free from the suffering that trachoma has inflicted on their ancestors.”
Trachoma is caused by the bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis and spreads through personal contact, interactions with contaminated surfaces and on flies that have been in contact with eye or nose discharge of an infected person. Repeated infections can lead to scarring, in-turning of the eyelids, and ultimately blindness. Globally, the disease remains endemic in many vulnerable communities where access to clean water and sanitation is limited.
“Fiji’s success in eliminating trachoma is a beacon of what’s possible when communities, governments, and partners unite behind a shared goal”, said Dr Saia Ma’u Piukala, WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific. “This is a celebration of the power of Pacific leadership and the impact of sustained investment in health. WHO congratulates Fiji and is committed to supporting countries across the Region in advancing health for all so that no one is left behind.”
Trachoma was once a significant public health problem in Fiji, with medical reports from the 1930s and community-based surveys in the 1950s documenting widespread disease and risk of blindness. By the 1980s, the condition had declined markedly, with cataract and refractive error emerging as the main causes of vision loss.
Concern however was renewed in the 2000s, when rapid assessments suggested high levels of active trachoma in children, prompting the Ministry of Health and Medical Services to launch a comprehensive programme to better understand the situation and take necessary action.
Since 2012, Fiji has undertaken a series of robust, internationally supported surveys and studies, including population-based prevalence surveys and laboratory testing, to understand the local epidemiology of trachoma and distinguish it from other causes of eye disease. This sustained effort, integrated with school health, water and sanitation initiatives, and community awareness programmes, has confirmed that trachoma is no longer a public health problem in Fiji and that systems are in place to identify and manage future cases.
“Fiji’s elimination of trachoma is a defining moment for health equity in the Pacific,” said Honourable Dr Ratu Atonio Rabici Lalabalavu, Minister of Health and Medical Services of Fiji. “This achievement reflects years of coordinated action – across villages, health facilities and regional platforms – demonstrating unwavering commitment of our health- care workers, communities leading the change. As we celebrate this milestone, we call on our donors and partners in the Pacific and beyond to continue supporting accelerated action of neglected tropical diseases to address other diseases not only in Fiji, but across the Pacific”.
Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are a diverse group of diseases and conditions associated with devastating health, social and economic consequences. They are mainly prevalent mostly among impoverished communities in tropical areas. WHO estimates that NTDs affect more than 1 billion people.
The targets included in the Road map for neglected tropical diseases 2021–2030 cover the prevention, control, elimination and eradication of 20 diseases and disease groups by 2030.
Since 2016, 13 Member States in the Western Pacific Region, which covers 38 countries and areas, have been validated by WHO for eliminating at least one NTD. Of these, six (Cambodia, China, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu and Viet Nam) have successfully eliminated trachoma as a public health problem. Trachoma elimination is part of broader progress on NTDs in Fiji and the rest of the Western Pacific Region.
WHO continues to support countries in their efforts to eliminate trachoma and other NTDs, ensuring healthier lives for all, particularly the most disadvantaged.
The World Bank Group, the Government of Japan, and the World Health Organization officially launched the Health Works Leaders Coalition. This global alliance brings together health and finance ministers, philanthropic organizations, business leaders, leaders of global health agencies, and civil society representatives with the aim of promoting investments in health systems as a strategy for economic growth, job creation, and improved resilience.
The Leaders Coalition is central to Health Works, a broader, global initiative led by the World Bank Group and partners to help countries reach 1.5 billion people with quality, affordable health services by 2030.
The Coalition aims to mobilize domestic and international investments, catalyse reform, and align partners behind scalable, government-led priorities. The Coalition is not a funding mechanism, but rather a coordinated effort to drive bold, high-impact action on health reform globally. During the inaugural meeting, held during the World Bank Group Annual Meetings, it was announced that an initial group of 21 countries will develop National Health Compacts – government-led agreements that will lay out bold reforms, investment priorities, shared accountability and unlock resources for expanding access to quality, affordable health care.
Reform priorities range from free health checkups and expansion of health insurance in Indonesia to developing a pharmaceutical strategy in Mexico aimed at creating 60 000 jobs through private sector partnerships.
The first compacts, representing a range of income levels and geographic regions, are scheduled for formal launch at the UHC High-Level Forum in Tokyo in December 2025.
The Government of Japan also announced the first group of eight countries participating in the inaugural programme of the UHC Knowledge Hub in Tokyo – a new platform designed to support national policy-makers from developing countries through capacity-building and knowledge sharing.
“Strengthening health systems in developing countries depends on cultivating health financing expertise within both health and finance ministries,” said Atsushi Mimura, Vice Minister of Finance for International Affairs at Japan’s Ministry of Finance. “Through targeted training programmes, the UHC Knowledge Hub will share Japan’s experience to build institutional capacity and support tangible reforms in health financing.”
“Sharp cuts in overseas aid are impacting health services in many nations,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “But affected countries are rising to the challenge, shifting from heavy reliance on overseas assistance to greater ownership over their health systems and futures. We must support countries to mobilize domestic resources for their health systems, especially for primary care services, and to protect the poorest from financial hardship by reducing out-of-pocket spending.”
“Our goal is ambitious: to help countries deliver quality, affordable health services to 1.5 billion people by 2030. No single institution, government, or philanthropist can achieve that alone,” said Ajay Banga, World Bank Group President. “But with aligned purpose and shared effort, it is possible. If we get this right, we can make real impact – improving health, transforming lives, strengthening economies – and creating jobs. This effort is as much an ingredient of our jobs agenda as it is a health initiative.”
Health Work Leaders Coalition Members:
National Health Compact Countries:
| · Bangladesh · Cambodia · Cote D’Ivoire · Egypt · Ethiopia · Fiji · India | · Indonesia · Kenya · Mexico · Morocco · Nigeria · Philippines · Saint Lucia | · Sierra Leone · Syria · Tajikistan · Tanzania · Uganda · Uzbekistan · Zambia |
Initial UHC Knowledge Hub Countries:
Cambodia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, Philippines
One in six laboratory-confirmed bacterial infections causing common infections in people worldwide in 2023 were resistant to antibiotic treatments, according to a new World Health Organization (WHO) report launched today. Between 2018 and 2023, antibiotic resistance rose in over 40% of the pathogen-antibiotic combinations monitored, with an average annual increase of 5–15%.
Data reported to the WHO Global Antimicrobial Resistance and Use Surveillance System (GLASS) from over 100 countries cautions that increasing resistance to essential antibiotics poses a growing threat to global health.
The new Global antibiotic resistance surveillance report 2025 presents, for the first time, resistance prevalence estimates across 22 antibiotics used to treat infections of the urinary and gastrointestinal tracts, the bloodstream and those used to treat gonorrhoea. The report covers 8 common bacterial pathogens – Acinetobacter spp., Escherichia coli, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, non-typhoidal Salmonella spp., Shigella spp., Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus pneumoniae – each linked to one or more of these infections.
WHO estimates that antibiotic resistance is highest in the WHO South-East Asian and Eastern Mediterranean Regions, where 1 in 3 reported infections were resistant. In the African Region, 1 in 5 infections was resistant. Resistance is also more common and worsening in places where health systems lack capacity to diagnose or treat bacterial pathogens.
“Antimicrobial resistance is outpacing advances in modern medicine, threatening the health of families worldwide,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “As countries strengthen their AMR surveillance systems, we must use antibiotics responsibly, and make sure everyone has access to the right medicines, quality-assured diagnostics, and vaccines. Our future also depends on strengthening systems to prevent, diagnose and treat infections and on innovating with next-generation antibiotics and rapid point-of-care molecular tests.”
The new report notes that drug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria are becoming more dangerous worldwide, with the greatest burden falling on countries least equipped to respond. Among these, E. coli and K. pneumoniae are the leading drug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria found in bloodstream infections. These are among the most severe bacterial infections that often result in sepsis, organ failure, and death. Yet more than 40% of E. coli and over 55% of K. pneumoniae globally are now resistant to third-generation cephalosporins, the first-choice treatment for these infections. In the African Region, resistance even exceeds 70%.
Other essential life-saving antibiotics, including carbapenems and fluoroquinolones, are losing effectiveness against E. coli, K. pneumoniae, Salmonella, and Acinetobacter. Carbapenem resistance, once rare, is becoming more frequent, narrowing treatment options and forcing reliance on last-resort antibiotics. And such antibiotics are costly, difficult to access, and often unavailable in low- and middle-income countries.
Country participation in GLASS has increased over four-fold, from 25 countries in 2016 to 104 countries in 2023. However, 48% of countries did not report data to GLASS in 2023 and about half of the reporting countries still lacked the systems to generate reliable data. In fact, countries facing the largest challenges lacked the surveillance capacity to assess their antimicrobial resistance (AMR) situation.
The political declaration on AMR adopted at the United Nations General Assembly in 2024 set targets to address AMR through strengthening health systems and working with a ‘One Health’ approach coordinating across human health, animal health, and environmental sectors. To combat the growing challenge of AMR, countries must commit to strengthening laboratory systems and generating reliable surveillance data, especially from underserved areas, to inform treatments and policies.
WHO calls on all countries to report high-quality data on AMR and antimicrobial use to GLASS by 2030. Achieving this target will require concerted action to strengthen the quality, geographic coverage, and sharing of AMR surveillance data to track progress. Countries should scale up coordinated interventions designed to address antimicrobial resistance across all levels of healthcare and ensure that treatment guidelines and essential medicines lists align with local resistance patterns.
The report is accompanied by expanded digital content available in the WHO’s GLASS dashboard, which provides global and regional summaries, country profiles based on unadjusted surveillance coverage and AMR data, and detailed information on antimicrobial use.
The world is smoking less, but the tobacco epidemic is far from over. A new WHO global report shows the number of tobacco users has dropped from 1.38 billion in 2000 to 1.2 billion in 2024. Since 2010, the number of people using tobacco has dropped by 120 million – a 27% drop in relative terms. Yet, tobacco still hooks one in five adults worldwide, fuelling millions of preventable deaths every year.
“Millions of people are stopping, or not taking up, tobacco use thanks to tobacco control efforts by countries around the world,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “In response to this strong progress, the tobacco industry is fighting back with new nicotine products, aggressively targeting young people. Governments must act faster and stronger in implementing proven tobacco control policies.”
For the first time, WHO has estimated global e-cigarette use – and the numbers are alarming: more than 100 million people worldwide are now vaping. This includes:
The tobacco industry is introducing an incessant chain of new products and technologies for its aim to market tobacco addiction with not just cigarettes but also e-cigarettes, nicotine pouches, heated tobacco products among others, which all harm people’s health, and more worryingly the health of new generations, youth and adolescents.
“E-cigarettes are fuelling a new wave of nicotine addiction,” said Etienne Krug, WHO Director of Health Determinants, Promotion and Prevention Department. “They are marketed as harm reduction but, in reality, are hooking kids on nicotine earlier and risk undermining decades of progress.”
While there has been a steady decline in tobacco use for both men and women across all age-groups during 2000–2024, women have been leading the charge to quit tobacco. They hit the global reduction target for 2025 five years early, reaching the 30% milestone back in 2020. Prevalence of tobacco use among women dropped from 11% in 2010 to just 6.6% in 2024, with the number of female tobacco users falling from 277 million in 2010 to 206 million in 2024.
By contrast, men are not expected to reach the goal until 2031. Today, more than four out of five tobacco users worldwide are men, with just under 1 billion men still using tobacco. While prevalence among men has fallen from 41.4% in 2010 to 32.5% in 2024, the pace of change is too slow.
WHO is urging governments everywhere to step up tobacco control. This means fully implementing and enforcing the MPOWER package and the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, closing loopholes that allow the tobacco and nicotine industries to target children, and regulating new nicotine products like e-cigarettes. It also means raising tobacco taxes, banning advertising, and expanding cessation services so that millions more people can quit.
“Nearly 20% of adults people still use tobacco and nicotine products. We cannot let up now,” said Jeremy Farrar, WHO Assistant Director-General for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention and Care. “The world has made gains, but stronger, faster action is the only way to beat the tobacco epidemic.”
Findings of the new report titled, “WHO global report on trends in prevalence of tobacco use 2000–2024 and projections 2025–2030” are based on 2034 national surveys, covering 97% of the global population. The data underpin global reporting on SDG Target 3.a and the WHO NCD Global Action Plan, which aimed for a 30% relative reduction in tobacco use by 2025. Current progress: 27% reduction, falling short by 50 million users.