- On his first day in office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO), a global coalition that addresses health issues.
- Experts say the move will prevent the U.S. from responding adequately to health crises, including viruses and pandemics, and prevent the WHO from responding adequately to emerging threats.
- Trump cited the organization’s management of the Covid-19 pandemic as well as the financial obligations of the US as reasons for the withdrawal.
On January 20, President Donald Trump signed an executive order withdrawing the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO), the 194-member global coalition that deals with health issues globally. But experts say the order could leave Americans unprotected from new diseases such as bird flu and Marburg — and prevent the agency from responding to new threats.
“It is a cataclysmic presidential decision,” Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University and director of the WHO’s Center for Global Health Law, said in a post on X. “The withdrawal is a severe wound to global health, but an even deeper wound to the US. ”
That’s because, like The New York Times report, the US Centers for Disease Control would lose access to WHO data on growing global health problems. Guest, along with Richard Conniff, author The End of Epidemics: A History of Escape from Contagionthey wrote in The Washington Post that withdrawal will leave the US open to diseases from abroad, citing the WHO’s recent halt to an outbreak of Marburg, dubbed the “bleeding eye virus.”
Headquarters of the World Health Organization in Geneva.
Photo by Xinhua/Shutterstock
They also write that childhood diseases that have been eradicated by vaccination could return — and with bird flu on the horizon, the move leaves America vulnerable to another pandemic. “Withdrawing from the WHO will put US agencies and pharmaceutical companies on the back foot in accessing critical data on H5N1 and slow the development of a vaccine that we may urgently need to save lives,” Gostin and Conniff wrote.
US status and power could take a hit, according to Elisha Dunn-Georgiou, president and CEO of the Global Health Council, as reported by NPR. The withdrawal is “really bad for the US [in terms of] access to data, surveillance, being at the negotiating table and holding other countries accountable when there is an epidemic or pandemic.”
In response to the new threats, Trump’s order also includes a provision authorizing the assistant to the president for national security to “establish administrations and coordination mechanisms” that are “necessary and appropriate to protect public health and enhance biosecurity” — but did not specify which those would be. mechanisms.
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The WHO’s work will also be affected, NBC News reported, as it will lose US funding, likely for vaccine and child and maternal health programs.
In his order — one of many signed on his first day in office — Trump cited the WHO’s “mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic emanating from Wuhan, China, and other global health crises,” as well as “heavy payments from the United States states.” Trump said he believed, from a population perspective, that China should pay more than the US
The The Washington Post says that the amount of the contribution determines the number of inhabitants and the income of the country. The United States is the largest contributor to the organization, donating $1.284 billion in 2022-2023, according to the WHO. Germany is in second place with 856 million dollars in donations.
“World Health ripped us off, everyone is robbing the United States. It won’t happen again,” Trump said as he signed the order, according to Sky News.
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Report of the World Health Organization on the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021.
Photo: ROMAN PILIPEY/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
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In its official response to the withdrawal, the World Health Organization noted that the United States was one of the founding members of the coalition in 1948 and that it actively participated in its World Health Assembly and Executive Committee.
“For more than seven decades, WHO and the US have saved countless lives and protected Americans and all people from health threats. Together we eradicated smallpox and together we brought polio to the brink of eradication. US institutions have contributed to and benefited from WHO membership,” the statement continued, adding that WHO plays a critical role in “detecting, preventing, and responding to health emergencies, including disease outbreaks, often in dangerous places where others cannot go.”
The WHO said it “regrets the announcement that the United States of America intends to withdraw from the Organization.”
“We hope the United States will reconsider, and we look forward to engaging in a constructive dialogue to maintain the partnership between the US and WHO, for the benefit of the health and well-being of millions of people around the world.”
Categories: Trends
Source: HIS Education