Argentina to follow Trump and leave World Health Organization

Country’s President says decision is partly motivated by ‘deep differences’ over the agency’s handling of the pandemic. Copy link. twitter. facebook. whatsapp. Argentina will follow the United States and withdraw from the World Health Organization (WHO), a spokesperson for the country’s president has said. Manuel Adorni, spokesperson for Argentina’s President Javier Milei, told a press conference on Wednesday that the decision was partly motivated by “deep differences” over the WHO’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The WHO’s pandemic management, along with the leadership of former President Alberto Fernández, “led [Argentina] to the longest lockdown in human history,” Mr Adorni said. “We Argentines will not allow an international organisation to intervene in our sovereignty, much less in our health.”. The WHO promoted “never-ending lockdowns” during the pandemic “without any scientific evidence,” the presidential communications team said in a statement on X minutes after the press conference.

Mr Adorni said Argentina does not receive funding from the WHO for healthcare management and claimed the move “will not affect the quality of healthcare services” in the country. Argentina is also “analysing leaving the Paris Agreement” on climate change, Mr Adorni said. Mr Milei, the Argentine President, has previously described climate change as a “socialist lie”. Argentina and the WHO have collaborated on several projects including vaccine production, access to medicines, and disease prevention.

With support from the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO), the WHO’s regional office in the Americas, Argentina was able to purchase single-dose hepatitis A vaccines at a lower price, helping to significantly reduce the number of cases and the need for liver transplants in the country. The Argentine ministry for health and PAHO were also in the process of securing funding and building capacity to increase Argentina’s yearly influenza vaccine supply from 1.2 million to 4 million doses per year.

PAHO has also supported Argentina in tracking outbreaks of diseases like yellow fever, and helped the country develop strategies to eradicate malaria. It was officially declared malaria free by the WHO in 2010. The decision follows Donald Trump’s executive order to pull the United States out of the global health agency last month. On taking office, President Trump claimed the WHO had ripped off the United States and accused the agency of bungling the response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

At the end of his first term, Trump signed an order to take the US out of the international health body, but the move was reversed by Joe Biden when he took office. Trump’s decision last month sent shockwaves through the global health community. The US is the WHO’s largest donor, contributing around 18 per cent of its overall funding. The President has also announced the decision to merge the United States Agency for International Development (USAid) with the US state department, in a major revamp set to shrink the agency’s workforce and align its spending with Trump’s ‘America First’ priorities.

USAid provides tens of billions of dollars in aid annually for projects around the world, including initiatives focused on malnutrition, conflict, disease control, and clean water access. Earlier this week Trump also ordered the US to withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and barred any future funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), describing them as “anti-American organisations.”.