WHO Appeals for USD1B as Funding Cuts Force Closure of 6,700 Clinics

(MENAFN) The World Health Organization issued an urgent plea Tuesday for $1 billion to tackle the planet's most catastrophic health crises in 2026, cautioning that financial shortfalls have already forced thousands of medical centers to close their doors and stripped millions of essential healthcare access.

"A quarter of a billion people are living through humanitarian crises that strip away the most basic protections: safety, shelter and access to health care," Chikwe Ihekweazu, executive director of the WHO Health Emergencies Program, told a press briefing in Geneva.

He emphasized that health demands are exploding—whether from combat injuries, infectious disease outbreaks, starvation, or untreated long-term illnesses—even as access to treatment contracts.

Ihekweazu said the funding request will address 36 emergencies spanning Gaza and the broader Middle East, Sudan, Ukraine, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, and Myanmar.

"Already, 2025 was an exceptionally difficult year," he said, adding that "global funding cuts forced 6,700 health facilities in 22 humanitarian settings to either close or reduce services, cutting 53 million people off from health care."

Households are confronting impossible decisions, such as whether to buy food or medicine," he said. "People should never have to make these choices."

Over the past year, the WHO mounted responses to 50 emergencies across 82 nations, delivering aid to more than 30 million individuals, bolstering over 8,000 facilities, and dispatching more than 1,400 mobile clinics.

"Health is priceless," Ihekweazu said. "Today, we again invite the world to invest in health."

The United States, historically among the WHO's largest contributors, formally exited the organization in January.

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