Donald Trump’s halt on WHO funding will be felt most by the world’s poorest people, experts say
- Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Indian subcontinent and Latin America are fighting not only Covid-19, but also Ebola, HIV, tuberculosis, malaria and polio
- The UN health agency runs programmes to help fight disease around the world, but without US support they will all be put at risk
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), for instance, is currently fighting not only the coronavirus, which as of Saturday had sickened more than 300 people and killed 25 in the country, but also Ebola, which has claimed over 2,200 lives.
Lawrence Gostin, director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University in the United States, said the coronavirus was poised to march through low-income countries with weak health systems, such as those in sub-Saharan Africa, the Indian subcontinent and Latin America, and Trump’s freeze on funding would weaken the WHO’s ability to help.
“It is not just the funding but the lack of political support and having to defend itself, caught in the middle of a geopolitical power clash between the two richest countries,” he said.
The US has traditionally been the WHO’s biggest financial donor, contributing US$893 million last year, according to the health agency’s own figures. Most of that money goes to poor countries in Africa, Latin America and parts of Asia where millions of people suffer from various illnesses.
The WHO receives funding from two streams. About 20 per cent comes from “assessed contributions” from individual nations based on their gross domestic product and population, with the rest from voluntary contributions.