The international agency, part of the United Nations, was founded in 1948 and includes 194 countries working together to fight the world’s toughest public health problems. It is the cornerstone of global health efforts, with a multinational staff fighting both communicable diseases—like COVID-19, Zika, and HIV—and chronic conditions, such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.
WHO also works to fight malnutrition, deliver vaccines, and provide assistance and technical guidance to people in poor and battle-scarred regions of the world. Its biennial budget is $6.8 billion. The U.S. is among the largest donors.
Over the years, WHO has worked to eradicate smallpox, reduce worldwide polio cases by 99%, and greatly reduce the prevalence of malaria and trachoma, the world’s leading cause of blindness.
And it’s looking increasingly likely the Bird Flu pandemic will move into humans. The US has already been lax on dealing with outbreaks in cattle. Trump has neutered the CDC and withdrawn from WHO.
The US is creating perfect conditions for a bird flu outbreak to originate in the US itself. It will he potluck how severe it is when it transfers into humans. Certainly the response will be hampered thanks to Trumps political choices so they won’t be able to contain it (which was already a low chance) but worse they have probably created conditions to accelerate its spread. It’ll likely spread further and faster than it would have done, affecting more people before vaccines can be made ready.
Trump Flu is coming.
I like this name. As soon as it turns into an epidemic in humans, we need to collectively call it Trump flu.