Expert: Leaving the WHO could be ‘disastrous’

The Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the World Health Organization (WHO) is a “terrible decision,” says Davidson Hamer, a global health and infectious disease expert.

Earlier this month, the Trump administration sent a letter to the United Nations formally notifying them of the United States’ intention to leave the World Health Organization (WHO), after accusing the organization of overly trusting China’s reporting of the extent of the coronavirus outbreak in the early months of the pandemic.

The spread of coronavirus, or COVID-19, infections, is still gripping much of the world and rapidly ballooning to record levels in the United States, which just this week set a record for nearly 76,000 new cases in one day.

“This will have a potential negative impact in terms of controlling diseases, particularly communicable diseases…”

Since the pandemic first began smoldering in China, the WHO has served as central database for the global response to the health crisis. However, the WHO has received criticism for its slowness in updating guidance about the virus as research reveals more information.

The United States has long been one of the largest financial supporters of the WHO, an organization that has helped eradicate smallpox and control and prevent the spread of polio, malaria, HIV, and other diseases that affect some of the world’s most vulnerable.

Trump’s move to withdraw the US from the WHO has prompted many public health leaders to speak out against the decision, which would take effect in July 2021 if finalized.

Hamer, a professor of global health and medicine at Boston University’s School of Public Health and School of Medicine, and a faculty member at the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL), has worked closely with the WHO, serving on various health advisory boards to improve public health guidelines for illnesses such as malaria and childhood fevers.

In recent years, Hamer collaborated with the WHO on a multi-country study to improve the clinical outcomes for sick newborns and has worked on numerous WHO-supported projects focusing on maternal and newborn health in developing nations. He has also been an active part of Boston University’s response to COVID-19, helping to surveil the spread of the virus and educate the community and the public about how COVID-19 transmits within communities and across geographic regions.

Here, Hamer discusses Trump’s plans to pull the United States out of the WHO and why he thinks such a move is “a terrible decision:”

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