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As Ukraine enters the fifth year of full-scale war, its people have endured the highest number of attacks on their health care in 2025 – increasing by nearly 20% compared to 2024.

Since the beginning of the full-scale war on 24 February 2022, WHO has documented at least 2881 attacks on health care in Ukraine, affecting health workers, facilities, ambulances, and medical warehouses.

Health services are under intense pressure in two fronts: direct attacks on health care, and the cascading effects of strikes on civilian infrastructure, including thermal power plants that underpin the country's power grid. These have left deep gaps in people’s health. According to a WHO assessment conducted in December 2025, 59% of people in frontline areas reported their health as poor or very poor, compared to 47% in non-frontline areas.

"After four years of war, health needs are increasing, but many people are unable to get the care they need, in part because hospitals and clinics are routinely attacked," said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. "WHO is working alongside Ukraine's dedicated health workers to keep hospitals supplied with the means to stay warm, and the medicines people rely on the most. Ultimately, the best medicine is peace.”

In 2025, WHO’s support reached 1.9 million people across Ukraine through service delivery, medical supplies, referrals and capacity-building, with a strong focus on frontline and hard-to-reach locations.

"Four years of war has created a serious health crisis in Ukraine," said Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe. "Mental health needs are staggering: 72% of people surveyed experienced anxiety or depression in the past year, yet only one in five sought help. Cardiovascular disease is surging, with one in four Ukrainians experiencing dangerously high blood pressure. And 8 out of 10 people report they can’t access the medicines they need. This is not abstract – it's a heart patient who can't find blood pressure medication, an amputee waiting months for a prosthetic, a teenager too afraid to leave the house. Ukraine's health system needs our sustained support.”

In a year marked by hope for peace talks, the reality on the ground told a different story. Attacks on health care intensified, reaching a peak in the third quarter of 2025, when 184 attacks claimed the lives of 12 people and injured 110 health workers and patients.

At the same time, attacks on medical warehouses tripled in 2025 compared with the previous year, disrupting logistics and supply chains that are critical to delivering care across the country. Over the past four years, 233 health workers and patients have been killed and 930 injured in attacks on health care. Such attacks constitute violations of international humanitarian law.

This winter has been the harshest since the war began, with multiple strikes on energy infrastructure leaving millions without heating, electricity, and water. Many of Ukraine's combined heat and power plants have been damaged or destroyed. In Kyiv alone, a January 2026 attack left nearly 6000 buildings without heat in subzero conditions, prompting an estimated 600 000 residents to flee the capital.

"What we are witnessing in Ukraine is a devastating cycle. A heating station is struck and thousands of homes lose heat within hours. At – 20°C, water in the pipes freezes, bursts them, floods buildings with ice. Repairs are made, then the next attack starts it all over again. Behind every one of these system breakdowns are families, elderly residents, and health-care workers who must keep saving lives while their own homes are without heat, water, or electricity. The burnout after four years of war is immense – and the demand for health care has never been higher," said Dr Jarno Habicht, WHO Representative to Ukraine.

The impact does not end at the hospital door. New mothers discharged after giving birth, patients recovering from injuries or heart attacks, and those awaiting or recovering from critical cancer surgeries return home to apartments without heating, electricity, or running water. Care that begins in a functioning hospital is undermined when patients recover in freezing, dark homes, turning medical progress into a daily struggle for survival.

The rise in war-related trauma injuries has driven a growing demand for surgery, blood products, infection prevention and control, prevention of antimicrobial resistance, mental health services, and rehabilitation.

Access to rehabilitation remains severely limited. Only 4% of hospitals providing inpatient rehabilitation and only 3% of facilities offering assistive technologies such as prosthetics and corrective devices.

Access to medicines is among the most persistent barriers to health in Ukraine, with 4 out of 5 people reporting difficulties, primarily due to high prices (71%). In frontline regions, closed pharmacies, security risks, and financial constraints make the situation even more acute.

In 2025, WHO worked to reach communities through multiple mechanisms, by prioritizing the most vulnerable people in hard-to-reach areas. The work spanned the full continuum of health:

• Crisis response: delivered trauma care and medical supplies to 954 facilities, supported over 1200 medical evacuations, and run outreach in 131 hard-to-reach locations;
• Recovery: sustained primary health care, noncommunicable disease treatment and mental health services for displaced and conflict-affected populations; and
• Rehabilitation: rebuilt damaged facilities, installing modular clinics, and training over 2500 health workers to restore and strengthen a battered health system.

To help maintain essential health services, WHO has provided 284 generators to health facilities across 23 oblasts in Ukraine. For 2026, WHO is appealing to raise US$ 42 million in funding to sustain its work in Ukraine and to protect access to care for 700 000 people.

In 2026 alone, an estimated 4.5 million girls – many under the age of five – are at risk of undergoing female genital mutilation (FGM). Currently, more than 230 million girls and women are living with its lifelong consequences.

Today, on the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation, we reaffirm our commitment to end female genital mutilation for every girl and every woman at risk, and to continue working to ensure those subjected to this harmful practice have access to quality and appropriate services.

Female genital mutilation is a violation of human rights and cannot be justified on any grounds. It compromises girls’ and women’s physical and mental health and can lead to serious, lifelong complications, with treatment costs estimated at about US$ 1.4 billion every year.

Interventions aimed at ending female genital mutilation over the last three decades are having an impact, with nearly two-thirds of the population in countries where it is prevalent expressing support for its elimination. After decades of slow change, progress against female genital mutilation is accelerating: half of all gains since 1990 were achieved in the past decade reducing the number of girls subjected to FGM from one in two to one in three. We need to build on this momentum and speed up progress to meet the Sustainable Development Goal target of ending female genital mutilation by 2030.

We know what works. Health education, engaging religious and community leaders, parents and health workers and the use of traditional and social media are effective strategies to end the practice. We must invest in community-led movements – including grassroots and youth networks – and strengthen education through both formal and community-based approaches. We need to amplify prevention messages by involving trusted opinion leaders, including health workers. And we must support survivors by ensuring they have access to comprehensive, context-tailored health care, psychosocial support, and legal assistance.

Every dollar invested in ending female genital mutilation yields a tenfold return. An investment of US$ 2.8 billion can prevent 20 million cases and generate US$ 28 billion in investment returns.

As we approach 2030, gains achieved over decades are at risk as global investment and support wane. Funding cuts and declining international investment in health, education, and child protection programmes are already constraining efforts to prevent female genital mutilation and support survivors. Further, the growing systematic pushback on efforts to end female genital mutilation, compounded by dangerous arguments that it is acceptable when carried out by doctors or health workers, adds more hurdles to elimination efforts. Without adequate and predictable financing, community outreach programmes risk being scaled back, frontline services weakened, and progress reversed – placing millions more girls at risk at a critical moment in the push to meet the 2030 target.

Today we reaffirm our commitment and efforts with local and global public and private partners, including survivors, to end female genital mutilation once and for all.

The World Health Organization (WHO) Member States this week advanced their negotiations on the Pathogen Access and Benefit‑Sharing (PABS) system in a resumed session of the Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG) on the WHO Pandemic Agreement. The PABS system is a core element of the agreement adopted by the World Health Assembly (WHA) in May 2025.

During the session held on 20–22 January 2026, Member States continued text‑based negotiations on outstanding issues in the draft annex and exchanged views aimed at narrowing differences and identifying areas of convergence.

“I am encouraged by the progress we have made in several areas, with signs of emerging consensus for some parts of the Pathogen Access and Benefit‑Sharing system,” said IGWG Bureau co‑chair Ambassador Tovar da Silva Nunes, of Brazil. “As we look ahead to the fifth session, the focus will be on the outstanding, complex issues. The resumed session has helped us gain a clearer picture of where we stand.”

Established by the WHA, the IGWG is tasked, as a priority, with drafting and negotiating the PABS system, which is intended to enable safe, transparent and accountable sharing of pathogens with pandemic potential and their genetic sequence information, alongside the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from their use, including vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics.

The resumed session was held following a request by Member States to extend the fourth meeting of the IGWG, which convened in December 2025.

“Member States have engaged in constructive discussions this week," said IGWG Bureau co-chair Mr Matthew Harpur, of the United Kingdom. "As we make progress towards the May deadline, I am encouraged by their willingness to work together and bridge differences to deliver an effective Pathogen Access and Benefit‑Sharing system."

Further meetings of the IGWG are scheduled in the coming months as Member States continue their negotiations.

“A strong Pathogen Access and Benefit‑Sharing system will be a cornerstone of a safer and more equitable world,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “I thank countries for their commitment to multilateral solutions.”

The outcome of IGWG’s work will be submitted to the Seventy‑ninth World Health Assembly in May 2026 for its consideration.

Access to treatment for leprosy is essential to global efforts to eliminate leprosy, says the World Health Organization (WHO) ahead of World Leprosy Day, to be observed on 25 January.

Leprosy is an infectious disease caused by a type of bacteria, Mycobacterium leprae, and is one of the oldest diseases known to humanity. The disease predominantly affects the skin and peripheral nerves. Left untreated, the disease may cause progressive and permanent disabilities and causes stigma and social isolation. However, the disease can be cured with multidrug therapy (MDT).

Efforts to eliminate leprosy have been leading to reductions in the number of new cases in many areas; of the 188 countries, areas or territories that submitted data in 2024, 55 reported zero cases. But still 172 717 new cases were detected worldwide and reported to WHO in the same year.

Many partners, including pharmaceutical companies such as Novartis, have been strong supporters of efforts to eliminate leprosy. WHO has collaborated with Novartis since 2000 to provide MDT and clofazimine, free of cost, to all leprosy patients worldwide. This partnership remains one of the most sustained pharmaceutical donation programmes in global health.

Marking 25 years of partnership, WHO and Novartis have extended a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for an additional 5 years (2026−2030). The extension makes provision for continued supply of MDT and clofazimine, and also includes funding for procurement and distribution of single dose rifampicin (SDR) for post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP).

“The unwavering commitment of partners like Novartis over the past quarter-century has been foundational to the progress made against leprosy,” said Dr Jeremy Farrar, WHO Assistant Director-General for Health Promotion, Disease Prevention and Care. “Their steadfast support in ensuring free access to treatment has helped transform millions of lives and moved us closer to a world free from this ancient disease. This enduring collaboration exemplifies the power of global solidarity in health – a reminder that, together, we can overcome even the oldest and most entrenched health challenges when science, equity, and partnership align.”

Availability of free MDT has made it possible to cure the disease, prevent disabilities, mitigate stigma, and has enabled affected individuals to continue working and leading normal lives. Additionally, clofazimine has ensured the treatment of lepra reactions, which are characterized by sudden, severe inflammatory episodes, leading to disabilities, if left untreated.

“Leprosy is one of the oldest infectious diseases known to humanity and combatting it has been part of our company’s history since discovering the first effective cure,” said Dr Lutz Hegemann, President of Global Health at Novartis. “Over the last 25 years, we have reached millions of patients together with WHO, and we are committed to going further to pursue our vision of a world free of leprosy.”

While significant progress has been made, sustaining and building on this momentum requires political commitment, community engagement and continued collaboration and partnership.

The theme for this year’s World Leprosy Day is “Leprosy is curable, the real challenge is stigma”.

This year also marks the 25th anniversary of Mr Yohei Sasakawa’s work as the WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination. He said, “One of the most stubborn challenges that I encounter on my travels is the social stigma attached to leprosy, which can be more problematic than the disease itself, and which can persist beyond the end of treatment. This is particularly true for people who have been left with residual disabilities as a result of leprosy. They may face various forms of discrimination, including forced divorce, lost educational opportunities and unfair dismissal. Even after being cured, they endure the unending pain of social exclusion.”

As leprosy is one of the target diseases under the broader umbrella of Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs), this work also supports the unified global effort towards a world free of NTDs. Learn more about the collective action and join our campaign on World NTD Day 2026 on 30 January.

The NTD Roadmap 2021-2030 aims at elimination of leprosy (interruption of transmission). The Global Leprosy Strategy 2021–2030 underpinning the Roadmap, shifts the paradigm beyond the achievement of ‘elimination of leprosy as a public health problem’ toward interruption of transmission and elimination of leprosy disease. Contact screening along with scale-up of preventive chemotherapy and mitigation of stigma and discrimination constitute key pillars of this strategy. Beyond working to ensure that every person affected by leprosy is detected early and treated promptly, WHO leads efforts to combat the discrimination that persons affected by leprosy too often face.

Today, the conflict in Sudan reaches its 1000th day, with over 20 million people requiring health assistance and 21 million desperately needing food.

Nearly three years of continuous violence, severe access constraints, and reduced funding have turned Sudan into the worst humanitarian crisis globally. An estimated 33.7 million people will need humanitarian aid this year.

The health system has been severely damaged by ongoing fighting, increasingly deadly attacks on health care, mass displacement, lack of essential medical supplies, and shortages of health personnel and funding. Despite sustained efforts by WHO and partners to restore and revive health services across the country, more than one third of health facilities (37%) remain non-functional, depriving millions of people of essential and lifesaving health services.

Since the start of the conflict in April 2023, WHO has verified 201 attacks on health care, resulting in 1858 deaths and 490 injuries. These attacks, which violate international humanitarian law, undermine access to lifesaving care and put health care workers, patients and caregivers at grave risk.

“One thousand days of conflict in Sudan have driven the health system to the brink of collapse. Under the strain of disease, hunger and a lack of access to basic services, people face a devastating situation,” said WHO Representative in Sudan, Dr Shible Sahbani. “WHO is doing what we can, where we can, and we know we are saving lives and rebuilding the health system. Despite the challenges, we are also working on recovery of the health system.”

The level of displacement is unprecedented. An estimated 13.6 million people are currently displaced, making Sudan the largest displacement crisis in the world. Fueled by poor living conditions, overcrowding in displacement sites, disrupted health and water, sanitation and hygiene services, and a breakdown of routine immunization, disease outbreaks are spreading, compounding the crisis. WHO is currently supporting the response to outbreaks of cholera, dengue, malaria, and measles, with cholera being reported from all 18 states, dengue from 14 states, and malaria from 16 states. Access to preventive and curative care, including for the management of chronic conditions and severe malnutrition, remains limited.

WHO works with Sudan’s Federal and State Ministries of Health and partners to improve access to critical health services across Sudan and rehabilitate the health system. Since the start of the conflict in April 2023, WHO has delivered 3378 metric tons of medicines and medical supplies worth about US$ 40 million, including diagnostic supplies, treatments for malnutrition, and diseases such as cholera, malaria, dengue, and emergency surgery, to 48 health partners for lifesaving operations. About 24 million people have received cholera vaccinations, and WHO has supported the country to introduce and scale up malaria vaccines. Additionally, more than 3.3 million people have accessed health care at WHO-supported hospitals, primary health care facilities, and temporary mobile clinics. More than 112 400 children with severe acute malnutrition with medical complications have received treatment at functional stabilization centres, all of which receive lifesaving WHO nutrition supplies. State and National public health laboratories have been equipped and strengthened to confirm disease outbreaks and enable a rapid response.

“As the relentless conflict renders some areas inaccessible, particularly in the Darfur and Kordofan regions, the population’s health needs continue to increase,” Dr Sahbani said. “To meet these mounting needs and prevent the crisis from spiraling out of hand, WHO and humanitarian partners require safe and unimpeded access to all areas of Sudan, and increased financial resources.”

Ultimately, WHO calls parties to the conflict to urgently work towards a ceasefire and peace for the people of Sudan.

The second WHO Global Summit on Traditional Medicine, jointly organized with the Government of India, concluded today in New Delhi, marking a major milestone for global health as it drew over 16 000 online registrations and brought together 800 delegates from more than 100 countries, including ministers from over 20 nations. Combined with a strong line up of 160 speakers, the global traditional medicine community shared insights on how traditional medicine (TM) can strengthen health systems with more safe, evidence-based, and affordable care. 

The energy in Delhi was palpable as ministers, scientists, Indigenous leaders, and practitioners came together to advance the WHO Global Traditional Medicine Strategy 2025–2034. The Summit was not just about dialogue – it was about action. WHO unveiled the Traditional Medicine Global Library, a first-of-its-kind digital platform consolidating 1.6 million resources on TM, from scientific studies to Indigenous knowledge. With advanced features like Evidence Gap Maps and an AI-powered tool, TMGL GPT, the Library promises to transform access to trusted information and accelerate research worldwide. 

Innovation took centre stage with the launch of Health & Heritage Innovations (H2I), an initiative to nurture breakthrough ideas that bridge traditional practices with cutting-edge technologies such as AI, genomics, and digital health. From over 1000 submissions, 21 finalists were announced at the Summit and will enter a year-long acceleration programme to refine prototypes, receive scientific and regulatory guidance, and connect with policy-makers and investors. 

WHO also announced the Strategic and Technical Advisory Group on Traditional, Complementary and Integrative Medicine (STAG-TM), a new advisory body to guide the Global Strategy. Comprised of 19 independent experts, STAG-TM will shape research priorities, develop standards, and advise on integration into health systems. At its inaugural meeting during the Summit, the group set urgent priorities: evidence generation, preservation of traditional knowledge, digital innovation, and capacity building. 

Countries rallied behind the Delhi Declaration, with commitments from 26 Member States, signaling a new era for traditional medicine. This collective pledge focuses on integrating traditional medicine into primary health care, strengthening regulation and safety standards, investing in research, and building interoperable data systems to track outcomes. It’s a shift from recognition to results – ensuring traditional medicine is not a parallel system but a driver of universal health coverage. 

“Through the Delhi Commitment, countries have agreed not only on why traditional medicine matters – but on how to act,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “Traditional medicine can help to address many of the threats to health of our modern world: the growing burden of noncommunicable diseases; inequitable access to health services; and climate change. It can help to support care that is person-centred, culturally grounded, and holistic.” 

Looking ahead, WHO will work with Member States to turn these commitments into reality– scaling access to trusted knowledge, accelerating innovation, and embedding TM into health systems everywhere. The Global Traditional Medicine Strategy 2025–2034 charts a bold course toward a future where care is more inclusive, culturally grounded, and resilient.