Vanuatu had a clear goal at last month’s annual assembly of the World Health Organization in Geneva – securing new international aid for the Pacific island nation.

“I’m here to lobby for support,” said Jenny Stephens, Vanuatu’s director of public health.

“We are experiencing the global funding cuts – it’s affecting our programmes like malaria, TB and HIV. We’re already struggling.”

Vanuatu’s health programmes are among thousands in the Global South that have been halted or cancelled since the United States pulled out of the WHO and terminated both its WHO funding and much of its foreign aid after dismantling the US Agency for International Development.

The WHO has estimated that aid cuts have already deprived some 53 million people, in crisis situations, of access to healthcare.

President Donald Trump ordered the US withdrawal from the WHO in January 2025 – a move that took full effect early this year, with last month’s World Health Assembly (WHA) the first to be held without the United States.

China has now emerged as the global health body’s biggest assessed contributor for the first time, replacing the US and raising the question of whether Beijing can not only fill the funding gap left by Washington, but also the leadership void.