Trump’s Plan to Abandon WHO Is a Health Disaster

“President Trump is trying to reduce the WHO, and the question is whether other high-income countries like Europe, Australia, Japan, and elsewhere, will pick up the slack,” says Vermund. “Will the Gates Foundation, which has given very generously, take some? It is possible that some will disrupt things until we have new administrators who will be friendly to the WHO, but I doubt that they will be able to take the entire WHO budget that is paid for by the US.”

And it’s not just the money that the US is giving to the WHO, it’s also the staff and the technology. “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has sent several staff to the WHO, and I would say that the Trump administration, with a new CDC director, will invite those people home,” says Vermund. “That would make a difference, because the WHO money doesn’t pay those people. So I think you will reduce the work and remove the important experts from the WHO organization.”

According to Gostin, most of the money that the US ​​provides to the WHO is a priority fund, which all members must contribute, but some funds are invested in causes that the US is interested in, such as the eradication of polio, HIV/AIDS, and the method of identification and control epidemics before they spread and reach American shores. Without U.S. funding, Gostin says these programs would not be possible, but would be greatly weakened.

“Polio can come back,” Gostin said. “Remember we had polio in the sewage in New York a few years ago, and our children are not getting vaccinated. And we’ve had other real disasters in the United States, not just Covid-19, which has killed more than a million people. We had Zika, and the next health emergency may be a change in a moment or two. Maybe it is already like avian flu, and we need WHO to help us with this. “

Both Gostin and Vermund fear that leaving the WHO will put the US behind the curve when it comes to receiving critical information such as pathogen samples and genomic sequencing data, which pharmaceutical companies need to develop effective vaccines. Gostin explains how the US relies on WHO data every year to successfully update the seasonal flu vaccine, while Vermund explains that in economic terms, it is more efficient for the US to give money to the WHO to help “eliminate” the disease from which it originates, instead. rather than trying to deal with them when they arrive in the country.

“We spent over $2 billion preparing for Ebola to hit the US coast in 2014 and 2015, and since we only had five or six cases, it wasn’t cheap,” says Vermund. “It’s an example of how when the U.S. stands alone, it can’t be better compared to supporting the international response to the disease in the country of origin.”