The World Health Organization, which faces an extraordinary financial crunch in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from the agency, has dramatically trimmed its top management.
Gone from the leadership is Mike Ryan, who has led the Health Emergencies Program since 2019 and who has been with the WHO, off and on, for decades. Recently Ryan has also been serving as the WHO’s executive director.
The change, the most notable of a number of departures from the WHO’s management team, was announced Wednesday by Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus in a speech to the opening of the meeting of the program, budget, and administration committee of the global health agency’s executive board in advance of the World Health Assembly, which begins next Monday.
“This was, as you can imagine, an extremely difficult and painful decision for me,” Tedros said, noting that the organization faces more cuts ahead. “I thank the outgoing members of our senior leadership team for their dedication, leadership, and service.”
The senior leadership team was cut to seven members, from 14. WHO departments will be reduced to 34 from 76.
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Also gone from the top leadership are Samira Asma, an American who was assistant director-general for data, analytics, and delivery, and Bruce Aylward, a Canadian who has been with WHO for 30 years, most recently as assistant director-general for universal health coverage, life course. Aylward, who ran the WHO’s polio eradication team for years, was a key figure in WHO’s response to the West African Ebola outbreak in 2014-2016.
Jeremy Farrar, the former Wellcome Trust CEO who joined the WHO in 2023 as chief scientist, was appointed assistant director-general for health promotion and disease prevention and control. Taking over as chief scientist is Sylvie Briand, who has run WHO’s influenza program.
Chikwe Ihekweazu, who has led the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence, will assume the leadership of the Health Emergencies Program.
Angry about the WHO’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, President Trump began the process of withdrawing the U.S. from the global health agency in his first term. But he lost the 2020 election before the process was completed and Joe Biden rescinded the withdrawal notice when he took office in January 2021.
Trump again announced the U.S. was leaving WHO on the day of his second inauguration as president. A joint resolution of Congress, passed in 1948 to allow the country to join the WHO, requires the U.S. to give one-year’s notice of its intent to withdraw, and to pay all outstanding dues and contributions before leaving. But the Trump administration has effectively already cut all ties to the WHO, stopping all payments to the organization and ordering the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to stop interacting with the Geneva-based agency.
Tedros said the WHO faces a salary gap of more than $500 million over the next two years, and will have to cut salary expenditures by 25%. The agency’s management team has proposed a 21% reduction in its budget for the 2026-2027 period, down to $4.2 billion from the previously forecast $5.3 billion. That’s an annual budget of $2.1 billion a year — slightly less than what Geneva University Hospital operates on, Tedros noted.
“How can WHO be expected to serve the whole world on the same budget as one hospital in a mid-sized European city?” he asked.
