{"id":546740,"date":"2026-03-26T16:39:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T16:39:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/546740\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T16:39:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T16:39:15","slug":"us-withdrawal-of-global-health-funding-is-public-health-emergency-of-international-concern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/546740\/","title":{"rendered":"US Withdrawal Of Global Health Funding Is ‘Public Health Emergency Of International Concern’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\"\"US President Donald Trump shocked partners when he announced an immediate freezing of all international health aid shortly after assuming power in January 2025.<\/p>\n

The rapid withdrawal of international health aid by the United States (US) constitutes a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), according to Professor Matthew Herder and colleagues writing in the BMJ this week<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to the World Health Organization\u2019s (WHO) International Health Regulations<\/a>, a PHEIC is \u201can extraordinary event which is determined to constitute a public health risk to other states through the international spread of disease and to potentially require a coordinated international response\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMultiple estimates predict reduced US funding will lead to millions of deaths by 2030,\u201d argue Herder, from the Dalhousie University\u2019s school of law in Canada, Professor Roojin Habibi from Ottawa University, Fatima Hassan, director of Health Justice Initiative in South Africa, and Andrew Hill, visiting research fellow at the University of Liverpool in the UK.<\/p>\n

The Trump administration\u2019s funding freeze on the US President\u2019s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), resulted in \u201cthe sudden closure of treatment services for thousands of people with HIV\/AIDS\u201d, while the stop-work orders imposed on the US Agency for International Development (USAID) \u201cimmediately reduced HIV testing and treatment\u201d.<\/p>\n

If this aid is not resumed, UNAIDS estimates<\/a> that there could be six million HIV-related deaths \u2013 a 10-fold increase on 2023 mortality \u2013 and nine million new HIV infections by 2030.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, cuts in funding for malaria, tuberculosis and other diseases are expected to \u201crisk millions more deaths in the coming years\u201d, they argue.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the Trump administration follows through on its threat to halt funding for Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, alter the US childhood vaccination schedule, and fundamentally change its approach to pandemic preparedness as part of its America First global health strategy, vaccine preventable diseases and deaths are likely to resurge, both in the US and abroad,\u201d they note.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, ceasing US funding for United Nations agencies, including UN Women and the UN Population Fund, \u201cthreatens to end services that support sexual rights and reproductive health in more than 150 countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mobilise resources<\/p>\n

In response, they want the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare a PHEIC in order to galvanise resources to address the US actions.<\/p>\n

They argue that the US actions amount to an \u201cextraordinary event\u201d within the definition of the IHR, and that an \u201cevent\u201d is not limited to the \u201cmanifestation of disease\u201d but extends to any \u201coccurrence that creates a potential for disease.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main interpretive issue in this case is whether the political actions of the US amount to a public health risk through the \u2018international spread of disease\u2019,\u201d they acknowledge.<\/p>\n

While the \u201cspread of disease\u201d hasn\u2019t fully materialised yet, \u201cwe are in a state of anticipation that numerous outbreaks of infectious diseases will occur as treatment and public health programmes reliant on US funding shut down around the globe\u201d.<\/p>\n

They argue that, while a PHEIC \u201chas never been declared because of the political actions of a single country, risk is the paramount consideration, and the US\u2019s recent decisions have greatly amplified the risk of multiple international outbreaks of disease\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, should the WHO declare a PHEIC, this can help to \u201cmobilise collaboration, assistance, and financing across member states\u201d and also enable countries to issue \u201ccompulsory licences, overriding the patent rights of pharmaceutical companies, to improve access to essential medicines to treat HIV, malaria, tuberculosis, and other diseases.\u201d<\/p>\n

Combat the infodemic in health information and support health policy reporting from the global South. Our growing network of journalists in Africa, Asia, Geneva and New York connect the dots between regional realities and the big global debates, with evidence-based, open access news and analysis. To make a personal or organisational contribution click here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US President Donald Trump shocked partners when he announced an immediate freezing of all international health aid shortly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546741,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-546740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}