Has there been any good news on the global health front in 2025?
The year has been dominated by the unprecedented shakeup of U.S. aid, with the dissolving of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and dramatic cuts and freezes. These changes in the aid budget had a devastating impact on programs that fight disease, provide free health care and focus on maternal and child health. Other countries reset priorities and cut global health funding as well, including France, Germany and the United Kingdom.
The turmoil of this year raises deep concerns about the year ahead, with different perspectives on the impact of the Trump shakeup.
"It's been a brutal year," says Dr. Atul Gawande, former head of global health at USAID and a professor at Harvard Medical School. "We're now closing in on 700,000 people who are estimated to have died by any conservative measure as a result of USAID's shutdown. [We now expect] the first increase in in child mortality since the 1960s. It's a setback of staggering proportions."
State Department Principal Deputy Spokesperson Tommy Pigott responded to these characterizations by email, calling them "false conclusions" based on "inaccurate assumption" and pointing to "the groundbreaking global health strategy being implemented at the State Department ... fundamentally changing how the United States delivers assistance by helping governments build stable, self-sustaining health care systems within their own countries."
Yet amid the debate about the future of global health programs, there was consensus: It was year that saw notable progress. "There have been important successes," says Dr. Kate O'Brien of the World Health Organization.
Here are some of the high points in global health in 2025.
A triple crown
No country has met the goal of eliminating mother-to-child transmission of HIV, syphilis and hepatitis B — until this year. In October, the World Health Organization validated the Maldives for the hepatitis B part of this trifecta. In 2019, the South Asian island nation had been recognized for ending maternal transmission of the other two diseases.
"This historic milestone provides hope and inspiration for countries everywhere working towards the same goal," said WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a statement.
[Note: Elimination means reducing mother-to-baby transmission below a specific threshold for each disease – for example, an infection rate of less than 1% for hepatitis B Dr. Catharina Boehme of WHO's southeast Asia office, credited the "unwavering commitment toward universal health coverage" to all, "including migrants," as a key element in this achievement.
Another record-breaking elimination
Just under the wire for a 2025 designation, in mid-December Brazil was validated by WHO for quashing transmission of HIV between mothers and children. It's the largest country in the Americas to do so.
"I've been in this work for 25 years and to think how far we've come — I really feel I've been part of witnessing one of the greatest public health achievements of the last 50 years," Anurita Bains tells NPR. The UNICEF associate director for HIV/AIDS, she was in Brazil for the announcement, marked by a celebration whose guests included the country's president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Progress in the fight to beat malaria
Suriname, Timor-Leste and the nation of Georgia were all certified by WHO as malaria-free in 2025. Suriname gets extra praise as the first country in the Amazon — with its mosquito-friendly forests — to eliminate the disease. The certification means no locally acquired cases of malaria in the certified country for three years.
Jane Carlton, director of the Malaria Research Institute at Johns Hopkins University, credits much of the malaria success to community health workers dispatched to diagnose and treat foreign workers in Suriname's gold mining areas.
There are now 47 countries and one territory that are malaria-free. Yet this ancient virus still takes a tremendous toll, with 82 million cases and 610,000 deaths in 2024, and there are concerns of losing progress because of climate change that enables mosquitoes to thrive in new geographic areas, drug resistance and reduced funding for community health workers.
But there's encouragement from a new weapon in the arsenal: In 2025, seven countries introduced the recently approved malaria vaccine: Burundi, Ethiopia, Guinea, Mali, Togo, Uganda, and Zambia, bringing the total to 24, according to WHO.
A nearly bulletproof anti-HIV drug
Lenacapavir, a drug injected twice a year to prevent HIV, was both approved in the U.S. and recommended by WHO in 2025. In clinical trials, the drug was 100% effective in preventing HIV in women and 96% effective in men – and there's no issue of stigma as there can be with the daily pills many now take to meet this goal.
In November, a partnership between the U.S. Department of State and the Global Fund began delivering the first shipments of what will be a total of 4 million doses for 2 million people in low- and middle-income countries. Eswatini and Zambia are the two countries to receive doses.
Anurita Bains of UNICEF calls lenacapavir "a game changer that is going to be transformative … especially for women who may not want [to tell] or can't tell partners or relatives that they are taking the medication."
There was additional good news about lenacapavir in 2025. The U.S. manufacturer Gilead Sciences announced it will allow generic manufacturing of the drug in low- and middle-income countries, with funding from philanthropies including the Gates Foundation, which is a financial supporter of this blog and of NPR, and the Clinton Health Initiative. The generic version is expected to debut in 2027.
In a statement, the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria said "this marks the first time in history that an HIV prevention product will be introduced in [low- and middle-income countries] at the same time as in high-income countries — a significant milestone for global health equity."
And while the road ahead is uncharted for U.S. health aid abroad, Jennifer Kates, senior vice president and director of the Global and Public Health Policy Program at the health research group KFF, told NPR that the 4 million doses of lenacapavir being sent by the U.S. State Department and the Global Fund "is seen as a really important development that the original agreement was made under the Biden administration is now being honored by the Trump Administration."
Getting the lead out in Bangladesh
A government survey in Bangladesh published in 2025 found a likely decline in blood lead levels in children in the country and a definite decline of 10 percentage points among children in the capital Dhaka region. Lead exposure can come from paints, batteries and dyes like lead chromate sprinkled on turmeric to enhance its color. One in three children in the country are affected; the consequences can include developmental delays and neurologic deficits as well as kidney and cardiovascular problems later in life.
Rachel Bonnifield, director of the global health policy program at the Center for Global Development points to education efforts by the Bangladeshi government such as warnings about sprinkling lead-based dyes on spices.
Funding for future efforts was affected when funding from USAID, "who had been one of the major proponents, felloff," says Bonnifield, but she is encouraged by new initiatives announced in 2025 by Bloomberg Philanthropies to support lead prevention projects in Asia, Africa and South America.
A more accessible HPV vaccine protocol
First approved in 2006, the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine has been hailed as an effective way to prevent girls from developing cervical cancer. But there's an obstacle to its success: The original regimen called for three doses. That has presented a financial burden to lower-resource countries purchasing the vaccine and a logistical burden for parents who'd have to bring their children in three times — a challenge in parts of the world where clinics are not easily accessible.
In 2025, however, a new strategy to overcome this issue gained greater acceptance. Years of testing have established that one dose is highly effective for younger girls and older girls can get the benefit from two doses.
In 2025, the one-dose strategy was endorsed by 11 countries: Angola, Benin, Cuba, Djibouti, Ghana, Madagascar, Namibia, Nepal, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Tunisia. And Belarus, Oman and China added the vaccine at two doses.
"HPV vaccination, which has reached less than 20% of the world, is our biggest opportunity for preventing cervical cancer," says Dr. Atul Gawande, formerly of USAID. "For every 70 girls who are vaccinated in low-income countries, you will save one life from cervical cancer. It is an extraordinary impact that has now reached 86 million girls and can be advanced considerably."
A six-in-one vaccine
In higher income countries, a hexavalent vaccine, which covers six diseases, has been available for the past 20 years. In July the hexavalent (six disease) vaccine was launched in low-income countries for the first time: Mauritania and Senegal.
The vaccine protects against diphtheria, hepatitis B, pertussis (whooping cough), tetanus, Haemophilus influenzae type B and polio. Mauritania and Senegal had previously used a five in one vaccine and separate vaccines for polio. The addition of polio cuts the number of shots kids get – and parents have to get them to. A statement from GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance, which is a leader in the effort to get vaccines to kids in lower resource settings, notes that adding one new virus to the vaccine's count can make a significant difference in protecting children.
Pandemic preparedness
In November, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention launched Africa Genome Archiving for Response and Insight, an online platform that will allow researchers across the continent to share genetic data on disease-causing pathogens of concern. They'll be reporting on, including familiar culprits like HIV and malaria as well as newfound threats.
"Africa developing genomic expertise and capacity will increase the continent's ability to quickly identify, characterize and respond to infectious disease outbreaks," says Dr. Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins. That capacity will result in "less damage and disruption" in any future global pandemics.
Fran Kritz is a health policy reporter based in Washington, D.C., and a regular contributor to NPR. She also reports for The Washington Post and Verywell Health.
Copyright 2025 NPR