Hard truths. Bold Insights. Real talk.
The UHC Global Monitoring Report 2025 shows that despite steady improvements since 2000, momentum is fading, especially for the world’s poorest communities, who continue to face the highest costs and the greatest barriers.
Latest WHO data shows an estimated 40.8 million people are living with HIV worldwide, including about 610,000 in the Eastern Mediterranean Region.
WHO reports that between 2000 and 2024, immunisation efforts prevented nearly 59 million deaths, with overall measles fatalities dropping by 88 per cent. However, the organisation notes that the threat remains serious. In 2024, approximately 95,000 people, mostly children under the age of five, died from measles. WHO stresses that these deaths could have been entirely avoided with timely vaccination.
In 2024, measles cases surged by 86% in the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region, 47% in Europe, and 42% in South-East Asia, compared with 2019
Over the past decade, access to antiretroviral therapy (ART) has increased from 7.7 million people in 2010 to 31.6 million in 2024, saving millions of lives. However, the rise in ART use has coincided with growing levels of HIV drug resistance.
Recent findings from WHO’s Enhanced Gonococcal Antimicrobial Surveillance Programme (EGASP) show a sharp increase in resistance to essential antibiotics, highlighting a rising public health challenge. Between 2022 and 2024, several countries reported a worrying number of cases where standard treatments no longer work.
In a bid to strengthen the response, WHO released Sh38 million from its Contingency Fund for Emergencies to assist national authorities in handling the situation immediately.
The new framework, titled “Responding to the health financing emergency: immediate measures and longer-term shifts,” provides a set of policy options aimed at protecting critical health services, improving efficiency, and promoting sustainable domestic financing for national health systems.
WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the organization was appalled and deeply shocked by the incident, calling for an immediate and unconditional end to all attacks on health facilities in the conflict-torn country.
The 2025 Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change report, produced in collaboration with WHO shows that 12 out of 20 key indicators tracking health threats have reached record highs.
The WHO says more evacuations must happen quickly to save lives. It wants to reopen the Rafah crossing with Egypt, previously used to transfer patients abroad. But Israel has kept the crossing closed since taking control of the Gaza side in May 2024. Officials in Tel Aviv say it will not reopen until Hamas meets its ceasefire obligations, including returning the bodies of hostages who died during the conflict.
The latest version introduces artificial intelligence capabilities, improved functionality, and a simplified multilingual interface to make health intelligence more accessible to non-English speakers and collaborative teams worldwide.