PAHO’s 2025 Annual Report highlights resilience, innovation, and regional cooperation for health in the Americas

Washington, D.C., March 19, 2026 (PAHO) - The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) today released its 2025 Annual Report, highlighting major advances in health security, disease elimination, digital transformation, and stronger health systems across the Americas.

The web-based report, Driving innovation, delivering impact, documents how regional collaboration and consistent technical cooperation have helped countries confront both long-standing and emerging health challenges.

"The year 2025 tested the resilience of health systems and international cooperation alike," said PAHO Director Dr. Jarbas Barbosa in the report. "Against a backdrop of reduced funding for international health, the Pan American Health Organization once again demonstrated what it has shown for over 120 years: its capacity to adapt, deliver, and advance health for all in the Americas."

2025 milestones

Despite a complex and evolving public health landscape, PAHO continued working with Member States to strengthen health systems, expand access to care, and respond to emerging threats. Among the highlights:

• Disease elimination milestones: Suriname became the first country in the Amazon basin to be certified malaria-free, bringing the total number of malaria-free countries in the Region to 20. Brazil eliminated mother-to-child transmission of HIV, strengthening the Americas' leadership in eliminating communicable diseases. ´
• Noncommunicable diseases care: The Better Care for NCDs initiative scaled up significantly, with more than 10,000 primary health care centers in 28 countries implementing the HEARTS initiative, providing standardized hypertension care to over 6 million people.
• Primary health care transformation: Chile, Panama, and Paraguay joined the Alliance for Primary Health Care in the Americas, expanding regional collaboration to strengthen primary health care systems and mobilize investments from the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank for health services.
• Digital transformation: Twenty-two countries joined the Global Digital Health Certification Network, enabling secure digital vaccination certificates and cross-border interoperability, and seven countries implemented the All-in-One Telehealth Platform to expand specialist access in remote areas.
• Regional Revolving Funds impact: PAHO's Funds procured more than $900 million in vaccines, technologies, and health supplies, delivering 234 million vaccine doses to 33 Member States and expanding to high-cost medicines for cancer and rare diseases, generating substantial savings.
• Regional production advancement: A landmark agreement signed in January 2025 between the Government of Argentina, Sinergium Biotech, Pfizer, and PAHO advanced regional production of the PCV20 pneumococcal vaccine, strengthening regional manufacturing capacity and offering countries the most affordable price.

The report also highlights setbacks, including the Region of the Americas losing its measles elimination status after measles transmission was re-established in Canada. More than 14,000 confirmed cases and 30 deaths were reported across 13 countries, disproportionately affecting Indigenous populations and underscoring the need for sustained vaccination coverage, strong surveillance, and rapid outbreak response.

Advancing health security

Health security remained a central focus of PAHO's work in 2025. The Organization's regional surveillance system analyzed 2.1 million signals related to potential health threats, leading to the detection of 157 public health events across the Americas. This system allows countries to rapidly identify and respond to emerging threats.

PAHO supported countries in responding to infectious disease outbreaks, including yellow fever, dengue, and the Oropouche virus, as well as to natural disasters like Hurricane Melissa in the Caribbean.

"Health security is in our DNA," Dr. Barbosa said. "PAHO was created to share information, be transparency-based, and to provide a platform where countries can come together to better coordinate their common efforts to contain outbreaks and epidemics."

Growing partnerships in the Region

PAHO, the world's oldest international public health organization, founded in 1902 and serving 35 Member States and more than 1 billion people, mobilized $552 million in voluntary contributions during the 2024-2025 biennium (as of 31 December 2025)-a 111% increase compared with pre-pandemic levels in 2019, while expanding partnerships.

"We have diversified our funding sources, expanded our partnerships, and demonstrated that we can deliver high-quality technical cooperation with greater efficiency," Dr. Barbosa noted. "Together with our partners and the governments we serve, we will continue advancing the health and well-being of all people in the Americas," he concluded.