The world experienced profound upsets of many kinds in 2025. We are now dealing with a completely unpredictable environment, where the traditional balancing forces no longer exist. As conflicts multiply and violence continues to rise, the need for healthcare has exploded. Increasingly precarious living conditions, armed conflict, and climate disruption provides fertile soil for the spread of infectious diseases.

Humanity faces more and more emerging or re-emerging infections: widespread mpox in Africa and Madagascar, the return of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in a particularly virulent form, the hantavirus alert, etc. The threat of infectious disease has never been so present, affecting vulnerable populations even more heavily, at a time when development agencies are facing drastic reductions in international humanitarian aid as certain major countries turn inwards.

The Mérieux Foundation has successfully faced up to this context despite the difficulties, demonstrating the resilience of its model.

Against this backdrop, the merger between the Fondation Christophe et Rodolphe Mérieux and the Mérieux Foundation, in effect since April 2025, makes perfect sense, giving our actions a new sustainability and stability and helping to ensure they remain effective and coherent over the long term.

The Mérieux Foundation was thus able to provide urgent help to long-standing partners facing dramatic situations—in Haiti, for example, where it renewed its decisive support for GHESKIO and the Léogâne children’s homes, and in Lebanon, with increased aid to health centers.