Thank you, former Prime Minister Leterme.
Excellencies, dear colleagues and friends,
Good afternoon, and my thanks to NGIC for the invitation and for its hospitality.
As I said in my remarks this morning, multilateralism is never easy, but there is frankly no alternative.
The only way to truly address shared threats is through shared solutions.
As I also said this morning, I believe that the proposed withdrawal of the United States from WHO is a lose-lose-lose: it’s bad for WHO, it’s bad for the world, and it’s also bad for the U.S.
But of course, WHO is not the only agency affected.
The U.S. accounted for 30% of all overseas development assistance, so the sudden disruption to that funding is having a huge impact on health and humanitarian work around the world.
For example, the suspension of funding to PEPFAR – the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief – caused an immediate stop to HIV treatment, testing and prevention services in more than 50 countries that PEPFAR supports.
Eight countries now have substantial disruptions to antiretroviral therapy.
Eswatini and Ethiopia will run out of HIV drugs within three months, while Ukraine has less than six months.
On malaria, we have seen severe disruptions to the distribution of insecticide-treated bed nets due to stock outs, delayed delivery or lack of funding.
In Africa, all indoor spraying campaigns have been put on hold, and only Uganda and Kenya were able to resume spraying the targeted households.
On tuberculosis, 14 countries in Africa and Asia are facing crippling breakdowns in their response, with shortages of human resources, disruptions to diagnosis and treatment, data and surveillance systems collapsing, and vital community engagement work deteriorating, including active case finding, screening and contact tracing.
Six countries have reported failing procurement and supply chains for TB drugs, jeopardizing the lives of people with TB.
On immunization, WHO’s network of more than 700 laboratories for detecting outbreaks of measles and rubella faces imminent shutdown, increasing the risk of local outbreaks, global spread and avoidable deaths.
The sudden suspension of US funding and the sudden disengagement of U.S. institutions is also affecting global efforts to eradicate polio and the response to mpox epidemics in Africa.
Apart from the impact on disease-specific programmes, U.S. funding cuts are also affecting the response to humanitarian crises.
Almost 24 million of the most vulnerable people are at risk of not being able to access essential health services, including for mental health, gender-based violence and sexual and reproductive health.
More than 2,600 health facilities in 12 humanitarian settings have already suspended services at least partially, or will do very soon.
In Haiti, staff have been laid off, salaries have been cut, drug stocks are running out and laboratory operations have been disrupted, jeopardizing the ability to monitor and respond to threats including HIV and malaria.
In Ethiopia, the abrupt loss of U.S. funding threatens to reverse progress in disease control, immunization rates, maternal and child health, and emergency preparedness.
In Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh – the largest refugee camp in the world – diagnosis and treatment of Hepatis C has been disrupted, as well as disease surveillance, primary and secondary health care for refugees, laboratory services, procurement of supplies and salaries of health workers.
What is the result of all these disruptions?
If these disruptions continue, we could see an additional 15 million cases of malaria and 107,000 deaths this year alone;
And more than 10 million additional cases of HIV and 3 million HIV-related deaths;
All of these impacts are avoidable. For the moment, these numbers are projected, not real – but they could become real very quickly.
Of course, the U.S. Administration is within its rights to decide what it supports, and to what extent.
The U.S. has been extremely generous over a long period of time, and perhaps the global health and humanitarian world has become too reliant on that generosity.
If the U.S. is to scale back its support, we only ask that it consider continuing its funding, at least until solutions can be found, so lifesaving services can be sustained.
And we continue to ask other partners to step up – the world’s most vulnerable people are counting on us.
I thank you.