In a year of steep challenges, there were still shining moments in global health

"The year has been dominated by the unprecedented shakeup of U.S. aid, with the dissolving of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and dramatic cuts and freezes. These changes in the aid budget had a devastating impact on programs that fight disease, provide free health care and focus on maternal and child health. Other countries reset priorities and cut global health funding as well, including France, Germany and the United Kingdom."

""It's been a brutal year," says Dr. Atul Gawande, former head of global health at USAID and a professor at Harvard Medical School. "We're now closing in on 700,000 people who are estimated to have died by any conservative measure as a result of USAID's shutdown. [We now expect] the first increase in in child mortality since the 1960s. It's a setback of staggering proportions.""

"Yet amid the debate about the future of global health programs, there was consensus: It was year that saw notable progress. State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Tommy Pigott responded to these characterizations by email, calling them "false conclusions" based on "inaccurate assumption" and pointing to "the groundbreaking global health strategy being implemented at the State Department ... fundamentally changing how the United States delivers assistance by helping governments build stable, self-sustaining health care systems within their own countries.""

In 2025 the United States dissolved USAID and enacted dramatic aid cuts and freezes that heavily disrupted disease-fighting programs, free health services and maternal and child health initiatives. Several other donor countries, including France, Germany and the United Kingdom, also reset priorities and reduced global health funding. Experts estimated that USAID's shutdown contributed to hundreds of thousands of deaths and a projected rise in child mortality not seen since the 1960s. The U.S. State Department described a new global health strategy focused on building self-sustaining national health systems. Notable health achievements were recorded alongside the turmoil.

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