In the wake of a U.S. pullout from WHO and a wider defunding of public health programs, how should the sector move forward? What’s needed is radical change, not just a bit less of the same, panelists at a WHA event told Devex.

*This article originally appeared in DevEx.

In the wake of a U.S. decision to slash health funding to poor countries, the global health sector must respond with radical changes, not with “cosmetic changes,” experts told a Devex health conference on the fringe of the World Health Assembly.

Historically, the United States has funded around 40% of all official development assistance spent on health —- $12.4 billion a year.

But this year, the Trump administration has made massive cuts, including announcing its intention to withdraw from the World Health Organization.

Elisha Dunn-Georgiou, Global Health Council‘s president and CEO, said that while it was important to make changes in response to the cuts, it was also vital to challenge the way the issue had been framed by the U.S. government.

Dunn-Georgiou went on to talk about how the U.S. had said it would only fund “lifesaving” assistance. But, she said, the role of health care was to keep people healthy, she said, not merely alive.

“The important thing here is that for every dollar that is cut, every award that is terminated, there are people who do not get care,” she said. “These are human beings who have suddenly had the health security blanket ripped out from under them.”

Read the full article here.