WHO chief looks back on a successful yet challenging 2025

The head of the World Health Organization said 2025 marked major achievements for global health, alongside significant challenges, including funding cuts and multiple humanitarian emergencies.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the adoption of the WHO Pandemic Agreement stood out as the year’s most significant achievement, calling it “a powerful example of what multilateralism can deliver when countries choose cooperation over division.”

He said the agency also validated 13 countries for eliminating diseases, issued guidance on new health innovations, including Lenacapavir for HIV prevention and GLP-1 therapies for obesity, and responded to 48 emergencies across 79 countries and territories, including Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine.

Tedros said the year also brought serious challenges, noting that aid cuts threatened to reverse decades of progress and that early estimates suggested childhood mortality could rise for the first time this century.