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Public health experts believe that while the United States (US)’s withdrawal from the World Health Organisation (WHO) could severely affect the global health body’s disease programmes, the move does not directly present any bad repercussions for India.
US President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order, announcing the country’s withdrawal from the WHO, stopping all funding and resource transfer to the international body.
This is the second time in less than five years that the US has initiated a departure from the international health body. During his first term, the US had issued a notice of intent to withdraw, alleging that the organisation was overly influenced by China during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic.
On its part, the WHO has expressed regret over the withdrawal in a statement posted on social media platform X, hoping that the Trump administration would reconsider the move.
Calling the US’s withdrawal unfortunate, public health expert Dr K Srinath Reddy said that multilateral cooperation is essential for collectively addressing major global health challenges that arise from pandemic threats, climate change-catalysed assaults on human health, and antimicrobial resistance.
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Among reasons behind the withdrawal listed in the order signed by Trump are WHO’s purported mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic, its failure to adopt urgently needed reforms, and inability to demonstrate independence from the inappropriate political influence of other member states.
Commenting on the same, Indu Bhushan, former chief executive officer (CEO) for Ayushman Bharat, added that the issue with Covid was that it was something very new, with no ready playbook and the world still learning even as the pandemic was unfolding.
“Given all the constraints, lack of information and knowledge, what was done was commendable and, therefore, withdrawing from WHO is unfortunate. Hopefully, they (the US) will reconsider (the decision) because, in any case, it is always good to be engaging with the organisation rather than leaving it like that,” Bhushan added.
The Trump administration said that the WHO continues to demand unfairly onerous payments from the US, which were far out of proportion with other countries’ assessed payments.
The US is the largest financial contributor to the WHO, providing around 18 per cent of its total funding.
Highlighting the financial impact, Reddy stated that since the WHO will lose its major financial contributor, other countries will need to step up their contributions and increase the level of scientific collaboration amongst themselves.
“Both international cooperation and self-reliance will now acquire new purpose and fresh forms of functioning,” Reddy added.
Experts believe that the US's withdrawal may not affect India, with Reddy adding that the impact will be more on international programmes than on India-specific programmes.
“Meanwhile, bilateral support will continue to come via Centre for Disease Control (CDC), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and other US-based foundations,” he said.
Bhushan added that the whole world might suffer since the governance system for health will get weakened in terms of all that the WHO does for the global community.
“This includes ensuring that information about new epidemics or infections is shared with other countries and the protocols for international health security are followed,” he added.
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