Dr Mike Ryan, director of the World Health Organization’s emergency response division, held his final press conference Friday in Geneva after eight years leading the UN health agency’s response to global health crises from war and famine to disease outbreaks.

In his farewell remarks, Ryan warned of an “era of collapsed funding” following the Trump administration’s decision to halt funding for UN agencies and international humanitarian efforts while withdrawing from WHO for a second time, compounding a global trend of declining humanitarian and health aid that has dropped a bomb on Geneva’s humanitarian sector.

“It’s easy to be brave when there’s nothing at stake. It’s hard to be courageous when everything’s at stake and I think we live in a world where a lot is at stake,” Ryan said. “Immunization is at stake, peace is at stake, health is at stake. Honesty is at stake. Truth is at stake. So I think we have a common cause.”

Ryan, an Irish epidemiologist who has led WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme since 2017, has been at the forefront of the organization’s response to humanitarian crises from Gaza to Myanmar and Sudan, as well as Ebola outbreaks and other disease emergencies across the globe. He became particularly visible during the COVID-19 pandemic, where his direct, plain-speaking style made him one of WHO’s most recognizable faces.

His farewell coincided with WHO’s release of the latest report from its Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens (SAGO), which concluded that China continues to withhold data necessary to determine how COVID-19 emerged, leading Ryan to address the controversy and call for international cooperation despite ongoing conflicts.

“Would I like to know what the origins of this virus are? Yes, because we want to be able to shut the door, close the trap door, so that virus can never escape again, but there are many, many other viruses in the world,” he said.

“We need to continue to look at origins and everything else, but if that’s only been driven by political outcomes, if that’s only been driven by the intent to hurt, if your intent to investigate is only to punish, you will never have justice,” Ryan continued. “If your intent to investigate is to be enlightened, then you will find justice through the process.”

Ryan, who joined WHO in 1996, is one of the organization’s longest-serving senior officials. His field experience included coordinating responses to cholera, meningitis, and hemorrhagic fever outbreaks across Africa, Asia and the Middle East, often in areas affected by conflict and displacement.

Ryan defended the progress made during his tenure in global health cooperation through improvements in the International Health Regulations, pandemic accord negotiations, and institutions like Gavi and the pandemic fund.

“We’ve moved progressively in cooperation in the IHR revision of 2005 and into the IHR amendments provision under Tedros, the pandemic accord,” Ryan said. “We’re actually learning better ways to cooperate globally on epidemics and on emergencies.”

“Are we getting better at this? We are,” he added. “Are we perfect? No, we’re not.”

His acknowledgment of the imperfections of WHO, its sister UN agencies, and international aid organizations came with a plea for continued support, noting the complexity of their global mandates amid shrinking resources.

“In this era of collapsed funding, of mistrust in public institutions, of the attacks that international UN and NGO organizations are under, this is not helping,” Ryan said.

Ryan’s departure comes as WHO faces an existential funding crisis that has forced it to trim its ambitions across the world. The US funding cuts have transformed Geneva’s already underfunded humanitarian system, but Ryan argued that withdrawing support would only worsen global health security.

“One needs to be courageous at times like this,” he said. “Our job is to enlighten you as to what the real issues are. We have a framework that’s been approved by our member states. That’s enough to move forward.”