Geneva: The World Health Organization is facing a gaping deficit this year and through 2027 following the US decision to withdraw, even after dramatically slashing its budget, a media report indicated Wednesday.
As the United Nations health agency has been bracing for the planned full US withdrawal next January, it has gradually shrunk its two-year budget for 2026-2027 from $5.3 billion to $4.2 billion.
But even after the dramatic scaling back, it remains $1.9 billion short toward that budget, Health Policy Watch reported Wednesday.
That figure, which the publication said had been provided to staff during a town hall meeting on Tuesday, comes on top of the nearly $600 million the agency had already warned was missing toward this year’s budget, it said.
WHO did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment on the report, which comes as the organization is grappling with the looming departure of its historically biggest donor.
Besides announcing the US pullout from the WHO after returning to the White House in January, President Donald Trump decided to freeze virtually all US foreign aid, including vast assistance to health projects worldwide.
The United States gave WHO $1.3 billion during its 2022-2023 budget period, mainly through voluntary contributions for specific earmarked projects rather than fixed membership fees.
But Washington never paid its 2024 dues, and is not expected to respect its membership obligations for 2025, the agency acknowledged.
Altogether, the United States owes $260 million in membership fees alone for 2024-2025, according to a WHO overview.
Only Friday, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had informed staff of the $600-million hole in this year’s budget, warning in a message seen by AFP that the agency had “no choice” but to start making cutbacks.
“Dramatic cuts to official development assistance by the United States of America and others are causing massive disruption to countries, NGOs and United Nations agencies, including WHO,” Tedros said in his email.
He said that even before Trump triggered the one-year process of withdrawing from the WHO, the organization was already facing financial constraints.
“Despite our best efforts, we are now at the point where we have no choice but to reduce the scale of our work and workforce,” said Tedros.
“This reduction will begin at headquarters, starting with senior leadership, but will affect all levels and regions,” he told staff.
Last month, Tedros asked Washington to reconsider its sharp cuts to global health funding, warning that the sudden halt threatened millions of lives.
He said disruptions to global HIV programs alone could lead to “more than 10 million additional cases of HIV and three million HIV-related deaths.”

BANGKOK: Rescue crews in Myanmar pulled a 26-year-old man out alive from the rubble of the capital city hotel where he worked early Wednesday, but most teams were finding only bodies five days after a massive earthquake hit the country.
After using an endoscopic camera to pinpoint Naing Lin Tun’s location in the rubble and confirm that he was alive, the man was gingerly pulled through a hole jackhammered through a floor and loaded on to a gurney nearly 108 hours after he was trapped in the hotel where he worked.
Shirtless and covered in dust, Naing Lin Tun appeared weak but conscious in a video released by the local fire department, as he was fitted with an IV drip and taken away. State-run MRTV reported that the rescue in the city of Naypyitaw was carried out by a Turkish and local team and took more than nine hours.
The 7.7 magnitude earthquake hit midday Friday, toppling thousands of buildings, collapsing bridges and buckling roads. So far, 2,719 people have been reported dead and another 4,521 injured but local reports suggest much higher figures.
The earthquake also rocked neighboring Thailand, causing the collapse of a high-rise building under construction in Bangkok. One body was removed from the rubble early Wednesday, raising the death total in Bangkok to 22 with 34 injured, primarily at the construction site.
Myanmar has been wracked by civil war and the earthquake is making a dire humanitarian crisis even worse, with more than 3 million people displaced from their homes and nearly 20 million in need even before it hit, according to the United Nations.
Countries have pledged millions in assistance to help Myanmar and humanitarian aid organizations with the monumental task ahead.
Australia on Wednesday said it was providing another $4.5 million, in addition to $1.25 million it had already committed, and had a rapid response team on the ground.
India has flown in aid and sent two Navy ships with supplies as well as providing some 200 rescue workers. Multiple other countries have sent teams, including 270 people from China, 212 from Russia and 122 from the United Arab Emirates.
A three-person team from the US Agency for International Development arrived Tuesday to determine how best to respond given limited US resources due to the slashing of the foreign aid budget and dismantling of the agency as an independent operation. Washington said on the weekend it would provide $2 million in emergency assistance.
Most of the details so far have come from Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city, which was near the epicenter of the earthquake, and the capital Naypyitaw, about 270 kilometers (165 miles) north of Mandalay.
Many areas are without power, telephone or cell connections, and difficult to reach by road, but more reports are beginning to trickle in.
In Singu township, about 65 kilometers (40 miles) north of Mandalay, 27 gold miners were killed were killed in a cave-in, the independent Democratic Voice of Burma reported.
In the area of Inle Lake, northeast of the capital, many people died when homes built on wooden stilts in the water collapsed in the earthquake, the government’s official Global New Light of Myanmar reported without providing specific figures.