The World Health Organization opened a meeting of global health ministers Monday amid concern over deadly hantavirus and Ebola outbreaks and uncertainty over announced US and Argentinian withdrawals.
While the rare hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship that has gripped global attention is not officially on the agenda, it is expected to feature prominently in discussions, alongside the latest Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The two outbreaks “are just the latest crises in our troubled world”, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the opening of the UN agency’s annual decision-making World Health Assembly.
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“From conflicts to economic crises to climate change and aid cuts, we live in difficult, dangerous, and divisive times.”
United Nations chief Antonio Guterres said the global health challenges “have rarely felt more daunting”.
“Over the past year, cuts to bilateral and multilateral aid have disrupted health systems and widened inequalities,” Guterres said in a video address to the assembly.
The meeting, which runs through Saturday, comes after a difficult year for an organisation weakened by the announced US withdrawal and deep funding cuts.
“The WHO’s budget has been reduced by around 21 percent, or nearly one billion dollars. Hundreds of jobs have been eliminated, programs have been reduced,” Swiss Health Minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider noted in her address.
“The WHO had to, and was able to, undergo profound reform in the midst of the emergency.”
Surie Moon, co-director of the Global Health Centre at the Geneva Graduate Institute, also suggested WHO had weathered the storm, telling AFP that while “the situation is “still fragile, … they’ve been successful in mobilising most of the funds” required for the next two years.
And the hantavirus crisis provided “a clear illustration of why the world needs an effective, trusted, impartial, reliably-funded WHO”, she added.
But significant divisions persist.
Disagreement between wealthy and developing nations has blocked closure on the WHO’s landmark 2025 pandemic treaty, with negotiations now expected to be extended for another year.
It also remains unclear what, if anything, would be decided on the withdrawal of the United States and Argentina.
