Effective immediately: CDC can't talk to WHO. What will that mean for world health?
NPR
This week, as officials at World Health Organizations convene meetings discussing everything from Marburg virus in Tanzania to mpox in the Democratic Republic of Congo, there are some empty seats in the room — and fewer attendees at virtual meetings.
Officials from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are missing.
On Monday, public health officials at CDC were told to immediately stop communicating with the World Health Organization in a memo that was sent to division directors, their deputies and others by John Nkengasong, the deputy director for global health at CDC.
The order comes on the heels of President Trump's inauguration day announcement that he was starting the process of withdrawing from the WHO, a U.N. agency that the U.S. helped found in 1948. In Trump's executive order, he recalled all U.S. personnel who work at WHO. The order explained that the U.S. is leaving because of WHO's "mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic," unequal payments from member states and an "inability to demonstrate independence from the inappropriate political influence of WHO member states."