US President Donald Trump's announcement of cutting funding to the World Health Organization as a result of what he described as the organization's failure to fulfill its duty towards the emerging Corna virus crisis and its lack of transparency in dealing with the crisis, despite the World Health Organization's warnings of the risk of transmission of Corona virus infection from one person to another in early January and its announcement That the virus is an emergency that calls for international concern one day before Trump announced the partial ban on flights from China, many questions about the impact of this on the work of the World Health Organization and its health programs around the world, and we review in this report the work of the World Health Organization Scientific and its terms of reference and the effects of cutting off funding, long-term and short-term.
Terms of reference for the World Health Organization
The World Health Organization acts as a clearing house for information, data and technical recommendations on emerging disease threats such as the Corona virus and Ebola. The organization also supports the elimination of existing diseases such as malaria and polio and promotes global public health.
The World Health Organization (WHO) was established as a global health agency of the United Nations in 1948 in the aftermath of World War II to promote global health, protect and educate infectious diseases and help countries unable to cope with disease outbreaks in their crises. The idea of its creation came from the international health conferences of the nineteenth century that were established to combat infectious diseases such as cholera, yellow fever and plague.
In its current program, WHO seeks to provide comprehensive health care and emergency protection for billions of cases around the world
Why is the World Health Organization criticized by Trump?
Trump announced the freezing of US funding for the World Health Organization as a direct response to what he claims is the organization's slow response to sounding the alarm about the global threat of the emerging corona virus, and noted that "the organization's reliance on information provided by China has caused infections to double."
However, the idea of cutting off the funding of the World Health Organization is not a new idea for the US government, which proposed on February 7 that the US foreign contributions, which amount to about 400 million dollars annually, be cut in half as part of a 3 billion dollar reduction plan to finance health projects and organizations around the world.
The World Health Organization, which theoretically contributes 10 to 15% of its budget and is the largest contributor to the United States, has requested an additional $ 1 billion to help fight the emerging corona virus.
Organization budget and financing
The World Health Organization suffers from a significant funding shortfall, and in 2018 its budget was $ 4.8 billion, which rose to $ 5.7 billion after the inclusion of emergency funding.
The impact of US funding cuts on the World Health Organization
While the impact of a 60-90-day suspension of funding from the United States is relatively small, given that the United States is yet overdue in its annual payments, the likelihood of the United States completely withdrawing from global health financing It will greatly affect some countries that depend on WHO assistance in their health sector, especially those projects that needed more funding from the World Health Organization such as vaccination programs against infectious diseases and diseases such as Ebola in African countries.