The sign of the siege of the centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia. The CDC is responsible for protecting public health.
Nathan Posner / Anadolu agency via Getty Images
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Nathan Posner / Anadolu agency via Getty Images
This week, while managers of world health organizations convene meetings discussing everything, from Marburg virus to Tanzania to Mpox in the Democratic Republic of Congo, there are empty seats in the room – and fewer participants during meetings virtual.
Official Centers for Disease Control and Prevention American are missing.
On Monday, CDC public health officials were invited to immediately stop communicating with the World Health Organization in a memo that was sent to Division Directors, their deputies and others by John Nzengasong, Deputy Director of the global health at CDC.
The order comes in the heels of the announcement of the day of the inauguration of President Trump that he began the process of withdraw from the WHOA United Nations agency that the United States helped to find in 1948. In Trump executive decreeHe recalled all the American staff who work to whom. The ordinance explained that the United States is starting because of which is “Mishandling of the Cavid-19 Pandemic”, unequal payments of the Member States and an “inability to demonstrate the independence of the inappropriate political influence of the Member States WHO “.
According to the official process for the United States to terminate the members, the country must give a year’s opinion. However, this communication ban takes effect immediately and does not allow a transition period.
What the prohibition could mean
CDC officials and world health specialists outside the organization are trying to understand the ramifications of this order both for the United States and the world.
“It’s unprecedented,” said Javier GuzmanThe Director of World Health Policy at the Center for Global Development.
The CDC collaborates with WHO on a wide range of health efforts, including current efforts to cancel a Major Mpox epidemic in certain parts of Africa and an epidemic of Marburg viruswhich is the cousin of Ebola, in Tanzania. The United States has donated more than a million vaccines to these efforts and sent teams of experts to support the local response.
Invited to comment on the future of these collaboration efforts, a spokesperson for who wrote in an email at NPR: “We analyze developments and have no more information at the moment.”
“There are many people who are impatiently awaiting clarification and the management of the new administration,” said a CDC official, who asked for anonymity because they are not allowed to speak to the press. They said they do not remember another presidential transition which included a directive similar to it. “I am not aware of any kind of communication that went to CDC employees like this.”
A request for comments from the CDC media team has been referred to the health and social services media team, which has not responded.
How they worked together
Among many other collaborations, the two agencies also work together on global efforts to monitor and contain the flu. Who directs the global flu monitoring network. Josh MichaudThe associate director of KFF global health policy, says it can be difficult for the United States to develop flu vaccines each year adapted to the current strains of the virus which circulate if scientists do not have access to Samples provided through the WHO system.
“There could be third parties that could create communication channels and American pharmaceutical companies on the private side could continue to have a kind of contact,” he said. “But that definitely throws a key to the work of what had been a system that is really important – not only for world health security, but also for us.”
“It is absolutely vital that the CDC and who talk about what is happening. So, a ban on this subject? Dr Chandy JohnDirector of the Ryan White Center for Infectious Diseases and Global Health of the Indiana University School.
Others agree. “It is very difficult for me to see an American national interest that is advanced here. And completely on the contrary, I just think that it makes it very dangerous for the Americans,” said Lawrence GostinProfessor of global health law at the University of Georgetown and director of the WHO Center on Global Health Law.
For example, he says, who summons an international meeting of experts who will discuss the flu from birds, among others. Bird flu Was largely circulating in cattle and fauna in the United States without CDC representatives in Reunion, he says, the CDC will not be able to examine the shared data from other countries where the bird flu has been identified And understands how the virus evolves and spreads through species. GOSTIN says that this new distribution on communications could hinder the country’s ability to prevent humans from being infected as well as to develop drugs and vaccines to combat bird flu.
“Not only is it reckless, but I think it is without law,” added Gostin, explaining that even with the announcements of the Trump administration, the United States is a part in the International health regulations and forced to follow its directives. This is a liaison agreement legally managed by which forces states to monitor health threats and report them to WHO. However, there is no solid application mechanism for countries that do not comply.
“We relentlessly criticize China so as not to respect (IHR) in the rapid reports and the communication of the Wuhan epidemic,” explains Gostin. “Why we would like to be in the company of China or Russia, which violates these international health standards, certainly beats me.”
In addition to withdrawing from WHO and ending communication between CDC and WHO, Trump has interrupted almost all foreign help, including many health programs. Taken together, Michaud de Kff calls the moment “incredibly precarious”. And, he says, “for global health, it could mark a turning point” in the way the United States contributes to the international effort to combat disease.
The start of Trump’s second term has also seen major national news unable to global health, as interrupt many federal financing and subsidy programs. This worries Guzman of the Center for Global Development. “Everyone is flooded with so many decisions and so many executive decrees and effects (from CDC and WHO to collaboration) are not immediate, that it is likely that it can slide under the radar”, he said.