Devex CheckUp: Does the US officially bow out of the World Health Organization today?

The United States is out of the World Health Organization. Except maybe it isn’t?

America appears to have met one key condition for withdrawal: President Donald Trump announced his intention to do so a year ago. But it hasn’t fulfilled another: The U.S. government still owes WHO $260 million in dues from 2024 and 2025.

Observers have noted that Washington is historically late with its payments, though, so maybe the check is still in the mail. Perhaps the more consequential issue is that the threatened loss of U.S. contributions — and other donor cuts — has forced WHO to make significant cutbacks, including letting half of its senior management go.

Despite Trump’s declaration, it’s still not clear that the United States can back out so easily. Member states still have to decide whether the withdrawal conditions have been met. Those issues are set to be discussed at the February executive board meeting and at the World Health Assembly in May.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is hoping to make this conversation moot by encouraging Washington to remain with the agency.

“There are many things that are done through WHO that benefit the U.S. — and only the WHO does, especially the health security issues,” Tedros said during a press conference last week. “The U.S. cannot be safe without working with WHO.”

Read: Can the US formally withdraw from WHO without paying its debts? (Pro)

Not so fast

Despite the questions swirling around WHO membership, Washington seems intent on pressing ahead with its bilateral approach to global health financing. U.S. officials have now inked agreements with more than a dozen African countries.

In the process, Washington is asking countries to trade something extremely valuable for continued development funding: data. In an opinion piece for Devex, Jesse Willem d’Anjou, Nicole Spieker, and Femke Heddema write that these deals could rob citizens of their right to control their own health data, while also restricting the development of data systems in partner countries.

If countries no longer have control over their own data, the authors write, it could undermine public trust and restrict countries’ ability to leverage their own data to transform health systems.

Opinion: Citizens will pay the price of health data as a bargaining chip in Africa 

ICYMI: US has begun bilateral health negotiations with 16 African nations

+ Catch up on our reporting on The future of global health — a new series that explores the consequences of cuts to foreign aid and the search for a new path forward.

Log on

Alternative visions for constructing and managing data systems in Africa are emerging.

For years, digital health projects on the continent have relied on donors. As a result, they haven’t been fully integrated, which means the infrastructure has not been capable of crucial tasks such as real-time mapping of possible disease outbreaks.

With donors retreating, more countries are looking to digital public infrastructure, which would connect three key functions: identity verification, digital payments, and data exchange. With these tools in place, health workers would have an easier time logging information that could then be synthesized on a national level or, in the case of a disease outbreak, extended across borders.

Of course, all of this data comes with the risk of misuse, including discrimination against marginalized communities, which is why its introduction must be accompanied by strict standards for privacy and inclusion.

Read: Can digital public infrastructure reshape donor-reliant health systems? (Pro)

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Big bet

Is artificial intelligence the future for health in Africa?

The Gates Foundation and OpenAI certainly think so, announcing at the World Economic Forum on Wednesday that they’re committing up to $50 million in combined funding, technology, and support to integrate AI into health systems across Africa.

Bill Gates said that his expectation for the new venture, known as Horizon1000, is that patients will have a much easier time navigating health systems, while easing the workload for health professionals. That includes everything from gathering preliminary information to summarizing a consultation for patients.

Experts are so bullish about the opportunities for integration that they suspect the uptake of AI may be faster in low- and middle-income countries than their wealthier counterparts.

Read: Low-resource nations may leapfrog wealthier ones in using AI for health (Pro)

Outbreak math

Speaking of new partnerships, Devex President and Editor-in-Chief Raj Kumar caught up with leaders from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, MSD, and Hilleman Laboratories at Davos to unpack their new $30 million partnership with SK Bioscience — and why it could change how the world responds to Ebola outbreaks.

The goal: Cut response times from months to days by tackling the bottlenecks that keep getting in the way. During the last Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, vaccinations started just nine days after the first case — fast enough to stop wider spread. But that speed depended on fragile systems that don’t always hold when multiple outbreaks hit.

The bigger challenge isn’t scientific — it’s economic. “The business case doesn’t work,” said MSD’s Priya Agrawal, describing how the company had to shut down a commercial product line to manufacture the original Ebola vaccine.

The new model tests whether risk-sharing can change that calculus, with CEPI absorbing early funding risk, MSD providing the vaccine technology and intellectual property, and Hilleman — a joint venture of MSD and Wellcome — handling tech transfers to partners such as SK Bioscience, which commit to eventual local manufacturing. 

As CEPI CEO Richard Hatchett warned, filovirus outbreaks — Ebola, Marburg, Sudan — are now annual and spreading geographically. Reliably delivering vaccines in nine days instead of nine months could be the difference between containment and the next epidemic.

Taxing thirst

That’s the number of countries that tax bottled water. Most of them are low-income countries. But WHO says countries shouldn’t tax water, and instead should provide incentives for its consumption.

That’s not the case for sugary and alcoholic beverages, however. WHO has been pushing for taxing these drinks, arguing it will help countries boost their domestic resources for health, while reducing their consumption.

The agency’s latest report shows that at least 116 countries are taxing sugary drinks and 167 are taxing alcoholic beverages. But many products containing high sugar content, such as 100% fruit juices and ready-to-drink coffee and teas, aren’t taxed at all. Wine is also not taxed in at least 25 countries — most of them in Europe. And in many countries, the levies have not kept up with inflation, making these drinks more affordable.

Background reading: Can countries tax their way out of a global health funding crisis?

Ssssssssss

Snakebites rarely make headlines, but they are a real and present danger for many people. In an opinion piece for Devex, Nepal researcher Ankush Lohani writes that snakebites lead to an estimated 20,000 hospital admissions and around 1,000 deaths every year.

These deaths occur mostly due to a lack of supplies of antivenom medicines. That means that even if patients reach health posts early, they don’t always immediately receive this lifesaving treatment. If they survive, they often live with long-term complications, including tissue damage, paralysis, or kidney failure.

The snakes aren’t the problem, but rather gaps in preparedness and regional health coordination, according to Lohani.

Nepal depends almost entirely on antivenoms produced in India. But Lohani says other middle-income countries, such as Thailand and Brazil, have shown domestic antivenom production is possible, and that safe and effective antivenom treatments can be produced when backed by sustained political commitment and regulatory oversight.

Opinion: Snakebite in Nepal — when environmental risk meets policy failure

What we’re reading

After the United States cut funding for a clinical trial of an HIV vaccine in Africa, researchers scrambled to rescue the research. [NPR]

One year after the Trump administration took office, researchers evaluate its impact on global health programs. [AFP]

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services disparages Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention after the agency announces plans to halt a contentious hepatitis B trial. [Futurism]

With measles cases surging in the United States, the country risks losing its status as having eliminated the disease. [BBC]

Jenny Lei Ravelo contributed to this edition of Devex CheckUp.

Update, Jan. 22, 2026: This article has been updated with additional information on the partnership between CEPI, MSD, Hilleman Laboratories, and SK Bioscience.