President Trump moved quickly Monday to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization, a move that public health experts say will damage the country’s position as a global health leader and make more difficult to fight the next pandemic.
This decision was not unexpected. Mr Trump has attacked the WHO since 2020, when he attacked the agency for its approach to the coronavirus pandemic and threatened to strip it of US funding. But after his defeat in the 2020 elections, the threat did not materialize.
Leaving the WHO would mean, among other things, that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would not have access to the global data provided by the agency. When China characterized the genetic sequence of the novel coronavirus in 2020, it disclosed the information to the WHO, which shared it with other countries.
More recently, the WHO has become a target of conservatives due to its work on a “pandemic treaty” aimed at strengthening pandemic preparedness and establishing legally binding policies for member countries on surveillance of agents pathogens, rapid sharing of outbreak data, and strengthening local manufacturing and sourcing. vaccine and treatment chains, among others.
Treaty negotiations collapsed last year. In the United States, some Republican lawmakers saw the deal as a threat to American sovereignty.
Lawrence O. Gostin, a public health law expert at Georgetown University who helped negotiate the treaty, said a U.S. withdrawal from the WHO would be “a serious injury” to health public but an “even deeper wound to American national interests and national security”. .”
Founded in 1948 with assistance from the United States, the World Health Organization is a United Nations agency. Its mission, according to its website, is “to confront the greatest health challenges of our time and to measurably advance the well-being of the world’s population.”
This involves providing aid to war-torn areas like Gaza and tracking emerging epidemics like Zika, Ebola and Covid-19. The WHO’s annual budget is approximately $6.8 billion; the United States has generally contributed a disproportionate share.
According to Mr. Gostin, it will take some time before the United States withdraws. A joint resolution passed by Congress when the agency was created addressed possible withdrawal and required the United States to give one year’s notice and meet its financial obligations to the organization for its withdrawal. current exercise.