Memo to President Trump: you are wrong to leave the World Health Organization. You should think again | Gordon Brown
THis week, in East Sussex, a mpox status announcedThe sixth case in the UK since October. New cases have also been discovered recently in France, Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Canada and the United States as smallpox spreads beyond Africa. And this week also the President of Tanzania Marburg disease outbreak confirmedIt is an Ebola-like virus, which the country’s health minister previously denied, only after the World Health Organization independently reported an outbreak of nine suspected cases and eight deaths.
These two new reports on infectious diseases, thousands of miles apart, underscore why, if anything Global Health Organization If they did not exist, they should have been created to identify and prevent the spread of infectious diseases throughout the world.
Because the infectious diseases that threaten us now still include new strains of the Covid virus, it makes no sense for President Trump to do so Announcing a one-day executive order Stay away from the only organization that addresses such health emergencies on a global basis, which is the World Health Organization.
While the current World Health Organization was established in 1948 under the umbrella of the United Nations, an international World Health Organization was created more than 170 years ago in 1851, when the first organization was created to deal with cholera as it initially spread undetected and then undetected. It is not yet processed. All over the world.
President Trump wants to leave, arguing that the United States bears too much of the burden of WHO spending, while the WHO listens to China, which he says pays only a small portion to the organization. Official executive order “China, with a population of 1.4 billion, has 300% of the US population, yet contributes about 90% less to the World Health Organization,” he says. “The World Health Organization deceived us” Trump said In the Oval Office as he signs off on a one-year countdown to departure. They’re paying $39 million, we’re paying $500 million, do you think that’s a good deal?
But he got his facts wrong. In reality, The United States pays $130 million in assessed contributions, and China pays $88 million.
As someone who has advised the WHO on funding, I know that funding is allocated according to a tried and tested formula based primarily on the size of a country’s economy, which is similar to that used to pay for UN peacekeeping operations and contributions to UN peacekeeping forces. . The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The United States represents more than a quarter of the global economy – 27% currently – but in reality the estimated US contribution to the World Health Organization is less than this number, and is limited to 22% of all global assessed contributions. Because assessed contributions represent only a quarter of WHO’s spending, most of its income comes from voluntary contributions made by member states and private charities such as the Gates Foundation. American administration Provides $368 million in voluntary contributions. So, if we take all the planned and voluntary contributions together, we will find that the United States provides about 18% of the total funding for the World Health Organization, which is hardly an excessive amount when compared to its share of the global economy, which amounts to 27%.
Of course, the burden-sharing formula requires China, which according to the World Health Organization has offered only four million dollars in voluntary contributions, for Eastern European and Gulf states to pay more, and this is what we and the United States should demand. But the 18% contribution is not an argument for leaving the United States.
The other accusation was made by the previous Trump administration when it first did this in 2020 Issue a notice of withdrawalStep Reversed by Joe BidenThe point was that the WHO was overly influenced by China during the early stages of the pandemic and that China was never honest about the source of the pandemic. “He-she [the WHO] “It’s run by China,” the president said from the Oval Office this week. But the head of the World Health Organization, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has repeatedly called on China to conduct adequate investigations and measures. Reveal information quickly About the origins of the Covid-19 virus that emerged in Wuhan five years ago. In fact, Tedros has drawn Beijing’s public ire by rightly insisting that all hypotheses about the causes of the pandemic remain on the table until China cooperates. The proposed “epidemic agreement”, now being negotiated as an initiative of member states, which would tighten international health coordination, is the right response to inadequate reporting. But if the United States leaves and refuses to support such an international agreement, it will abandon any role in these negotiations.
In his new executive order, the president not only directed agencies to “stop future transfers of any funds, support, or resources from the United States government to the World Health Organization,” but also “identified credible and transparent U.S. and international partners to take charge.” necessary activities previously undertaken by the World Health Organization.” However, it is difficult to see how they can create “coordination mechanisms within the NSC apparatus” capable of “protecting public health and promoting biosecurity” without a global arrangement. No similar organization is ready It replaces a body of 194 member states, with no major country outside, and can deal not only with infectious diseases but also health emergencies in conflict zones and climate-affected areas, while working to reduce cancer and other diseases around the world.
The World Health Organization is right to say so She hopes that the United States will reconsiderBecause it is too easy to forget that coordinated efforts across borders have succeeded in eradicating smallpox, virtually eradicating tuberculosis and polio, and reducing AIDS-related deaths. by approximately 70% over 20 yearsSince 2010, at least one has been eliminated.”Neglected tropical diseases“In 54 countries.
And with increasing mass travel, rising urban populations, and human encroachment on wildlife habitats – just three of 15 global risk drivers cited in a recent report by the World Health Organization. Global Preparedness Monitoring Board A new pandemic is not a question of if it will happen or not, but rather when. Without a properly funded WHO, we are left unprepared.
So we have to offer a way forward. Member States in every region of the world should step up efforts and ensure that WHO is funded sustainably. Australia could lead the search for financiers in Asia, Brazil in Latin America, the UK and Switzerland in Europe, and Qatar in the Middle East. Low-income African and Asian countries have already donated to the new investment cause the world has produced health organized. There lies hope. If the poorest countries can be persuaded to contribute, the world’s richest countries can be persuaded to do so as well.
