The long road to a pandemic agreement, a shakeup of the World Health Organization’s senior leadership team, and progress on a global plan of action on Indigenous health are among the topics in this week’s column.
We also link you into some positive news from Paris and Malta, as well as reporting more examples of resistance against Trumpism.
The quotable?
How can WHO be expected to serve the whole world on the same budget as one hospital in a mid-sized European city?”
In focus
Life expectancy worldwide fell by 1.8 years in just two years, between 2019 and 2021, representing the largest such fall in recent history, according to the world’s latest annual health report card.
World health statistics 2025, released by the World Health Organization this week, highlights the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, which reversed many of the gains made in the previous two decades.
Between 2000 and 2019, healthy life expectancy rose by more than five years, maternal mortality fell by one third, child mortality more than halved and premature deaths fell – driven by political commitment, investment, innovation and stronger health systems.
In 2020 and 2021, COVID-19 killed millions of people, put health systems under severe strain and wiped 1.8 years off healthy life expectancy.
The report says underinvestment in primary health care, shortages of skilled health workers, and gaps in service like immunisation and safe childbirth are now holding countries back.
Read more here.
Children in many of the world’s wealthiest countries saw marked declines in their academic performance, mental wellbeing, and physical health as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new report published this week by the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF.
The Global Plan of Action for the health of Indigenous Peoples must be developed with Indigenous Peoples, not for them, and must reflect Indigenous conceptualisations of health, considering self-determination, culturally grounded healing systems and ancestral knowledge, according to leaders participating in the 24th Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.
Discussions also emphasised that Indigenous Peoples’ full conceptualisations of health, including the holistic connection rooted in balance with the land, spirit and communities, must be central to the plan, reported the WHO.
“As an Indigenous woman, I don’t speak about myself first but about my land, my place, my ancestors,” said Emma Rawson Te-Patu, President of the World Federation of Public Health Associations.
Such a holistic conceptualisation includes addressing mental health concerns in ways that are community-informed and safeguard Indigenous medicinal knowledge and practices. It also involves the protection and promotion of traditional medicine systems as a whole; the safeguarding of Indigenous lands and languages; and the centring and embedding of ancestral knowledge into universal health coverage and climate resilience strategies, reported the WHO.
As well, health systems must acknowledge not only individuals but also their ancestors, lands and communities as essential sources of healing and knowledge.
Other global health updates
This article details a new report drawing on decades of internal documents and court records to lay out how some of the world’s most powerful corporations misled the public about the dangers of climate change – and how their efforts to avoid responsibility for the harms caused by their products have evolved in recent years.
Croakey also notes comments by Dr Tedros this week on the gap between the funding and the task for WHO:
“For an organisation working on the ground in more than 150 countries, with the mandate and mission that Member States have given us, an annual budget of US$ 2.1 billion dollars is very modest, to say the least.
At current exchange rates, the HUG hospital here in Geneva operates on the same budget – slightly larger than WHO, in fact. How can WHO be expected to serve the whole world on the same budget as one hospital in a mid-sized European city?”
The goal of the National Strategic Policy for Active Ageing: Malta 2023 – 2030 is to mainstream ageing by assessing the implications of older persons in public legislation, policies or programmes, with an ultimate objective of protecting the human rights of older people by mitigating against age discrimination, elder abuse, social exclusion, and solitude, whilst also acting as a catalyst for excellent levels of acute, community and long-term care. At the same time, it embraces the learning curve experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic by taking note of how purpose, belonging, and worth are threatened in emergency situations, and the significance of digital competency for active citizenship.
Trump Administration updates
An extract from the open letter, by a group of current and former employees of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA):
“The Bush administration introduced environmental equity (and justice) programming to the EPA in the 1990s. EPA staff working on environmental justice programs partnered with communities to meet their needs and used rigorous systems to track funds and results.
The Trump administration recently paused many of these environmental justice programs that fund community-led projects like air, water, and soil testing; training and workforce development; construction or cleanup projects; gardens and tree planting; and preparing and responding to natural disasters. Other examples of the EPA’s environmental justice programs include providing safe shelters during and after hurricanes, land cleanups to reduce communities’ exposure to harmful pollutants, and providing water filters to protect residents from lead in drinking water.
This administration has halted funds, claiming “the objectives of the awards are no longer consistent with EPA funding priorities.” In reality, these funds were approved by Congress, and these grants remain in alignment with the agency’s mission to protect human health and the environment. Even though there are court orders to unfreeze billions of dollars in federal grants, the Trump administration continues to withhold this critical money from the people who need it most.
We cannot stand by and allow this to happen. We need to hold this administration accountable to serving the American people, applying the same mandates that we have held our federal workforce and grant recipients to: follow the law, follow the science, and be transparent.”
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