A view shows The World Health Organization (WHO) headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, January 28, 2025. (Reuters/Denis Balibouse/File Photo)
- The World Health Organization said it regretted the U.S. decision to withdraw and expressed hope that Washington would return to active participation.
- The United States formally exited the WHO after the Trump administration accused the agency of mismanaging the COVID-19 response and yielding to political influence.
- WHO defended its handling of the pandemic, saying its global health systems helped protect all countries, including the United States.
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Jan 24 (Reuters) – The World Health Organization (WHO) said it regrets that the U.S. has officially withdrawn from the U.N. health agency and it hopes Washington returns to active participation in the future.
The U.S. left the organization on Thursday after a year of warnings that doing so would hurt public health in the U.S. and globally.
President Donald Trump’s administration has criticized the way the WHO handled the COVID-19 pandemic. Trump has said the WHO had failed to act independently from the “inappropriate political influence of WHO member states” and that the agency required “unfairly onerous payments” from the U.S. that were disproportionate to the sums provided by other, larger countries, such as China.
WHO said it stands by its response to the “unprecedented global health crisis” brought about by the pandemic, adding that “the systems we developed and managed before, during and after the emergency phase of the pandemic, and which run 24/7, have contributed to keeping all countries safe, including the U.S.”
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(Reporting by Anusha Shah in Bengaluru; Editing by David Gregorio)
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