A health organization created in the wake of World War II to fight disease across the planet is losing its biggest donor, the United States. Critical of the World Health Organization’s handling of the COVID pandemic, President Donald Trump signed an order Monday for the U.S. to withdraw from the organization that helps track outbreaks of disease around the globe and provides research and resources for fighting everything from tuberculosis to maternal mortality. Northeastern University experts in global and public health describe what the WHO is, who pays for it and the impact a U.S. withdrawal will have on the health of Americans and others.
Headquartered in Geneva, the World Health Organization may not be a household name like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) but it’s been around for nearly 80 years. “The World Health Organization is an international agency that was set up back in 1948 by U.N. member states to set global health policies and priorities,” says Aleksandra Jakubowski, an assistant professor in health sciences and economics at Northeastern. “It helps us figure out where to allocate our resources, both in terms of research and funding allocations,” she says. It also uses a global network of disease surveillance to determine “where we really need to focus more of our attention to help the communities that are most affected.”
