America is leaving WHO. What does that mean for public health?

The Covid-19 pandemic's outbreak was five years ago, but it still reverberates through American politics. After President Donald Trump on Tuesday ordered the U.S. to withdraw from the World Health Organization, it's clear that his anger toward WHO could "reshape global health," said The Washington Post.

During his first term in office, the president blamed the organization for "fueling the coronavirus pandemic." His new order "immediately terminates" America's relationship with the organization. That leaves WHO, which has fought to eliminate malaria and is currently tracking an outbreak of the Marburg virus in Tanzania, in a precarious position. The "effects of Trump's order could be felt when the next outbreak or pandemic hits," KFF's Jennifer Kates said too the Post.

What did the commentators say?

Trump is "wrong to leave the World Health Organization," former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said at The Guardian. The president's order directed U.S. agencies to find new partners to "assume necessary activities previously undertaken by the WHO." The problem is there is "no similar organization ready" to take its place. Meanwhile, global health threats continue to proliferate thanks to "mass travel, rising urban populations and human encroachment on wildlife habitats." Without WHO, "we leave ourselves unprepared."

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The organization's leaders have used their influence to "impose woke cultural agendas on the world," Wesley J. Smith said at the National Review. It has tried to impose a "radical abortion regime" on countries, and has backed gender-affirming care "as a medical right." Withdrawing from WHO is a shame because it "provides valuable public health and medical services internationally." The organization needs to make big changes "so that Trump feels comfortable in rescinding his decision."

America should "reform the WHO, not leave it," Ashish K. Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, said at Stat News. Yes, it is an institution with "deep cultural problems" that "mismanaged the emergence and spread of Covid" from China. But the real question should be how to make it more effective at "serving the public health needs of people around the world." WHO may be flawed, but it is also a "source of crucial coordination and collaboration." Which is why the U.S. should stay. "There are more pandemics and other health crises ahead."

What next?

Reform won't be easy if the U.S. leaves. America provides a "huge amount of money" to WHO, Paul Spiegel of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health said to Time. Withdrawing that support means "hobbling" the organization instead of helping it make changes. Leaving also means that the U.S. will not have access to WHO's database of influenza strains, endangering health at home. In the meantime, officials are trying to persuade the U.S. not to make the break. A reconsideration, the organization said in a statement, would be to the "benefit of the health and well-being of millions of people around the globe."