World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Thursday that he still hopes the U.S. administration will reconsider its decision to withdraw from the organisation next month, warning that its exit would be a loss for the world.
In one of his first actions as president, Donald Trump signed an order to withdraw from the WHO, citing the agency’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and its close relationship with China. The withdrawal is set to take effect on 22 January 2026.
Responding to reporters, Tedros said, “There are things you can get only at the WHO and nowhere else. These issues are health security issues, and that’s why we were asking the U.S. to reconsider, because the world can only be secure if we are all on the same platform.”
“Their absence from the WHO is going to be a lose-lose: the U.S. will lose, and the rest of the world will also lose,” he added.
Tedros said U.S. criticisms of the organisation were unfounded, noting that the WHO had addressed these concerns, including through cost-cutting reforms. On allegations of mismanaging the pandemic, he said lessons had been learned.
He also stated that Washington, the WHO’s largest donor, should contribute less in order to reduce the organisation’s dependence on a single donor.
Tedros further noted that, despite initial instructions from the Trump administration for U.S. health officials not to contact the WHO, they had regularly sought information, which the organisation had provided.
“We have given them any information they need, because at the end of the day the WHO’s existence is to make the American people safe and the rest of the world safe,” Tedros said.
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Emergency teams rescued 320 tourists stranded in 65 cable cars in Kashmir after a gondola disruption triggered a six-hour evacuation operation.
Muslim pilgrims are gathering gathering at Mount Mercy on the Plain of Arafat in Saudi Arabia to mark the Hajj pilgrimage’s most important day.
The inaugural Enhanced Games began in Las Vegas on Sunday (24 May), launching one of the most controversial experiments in modern sport, in which athletes openly compete using performance-enhancing drugs banned under traditional anti-doping rules.
A peace agreement between Washington and Tehran is yet to materialise, with U.S. President Donald Trump saying that negotiations are incomplete and an Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman saying that a deal isn't imminent.
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The World Health Organization warned on Monday that the fast-moving Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda was outpacing response efforts, with 220 suspected deaths reported so far.
The World Health Organisation has warned that the risk of a widening Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has escalated to “very high” at national level.
A luxury polar expedition vessel linked to a hantavirus outbreak has arrived in Rotterdam, where health authorities have placed the final 27 people on board into quarantine and have begun containment measures.
Medical teams are being rushed to eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) following a fast-moving Ebola outbreak that has already caused dozens of suspected deaths and raised fears of wider regional spread.
The World Health Organisation’s designation of the Bundibugyo Ebola virus outbreak as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) is a stark reminder that Ebola remains a persistent global health threat rather than a disease of the past.
The risk from hantavirus to the general public remains very low, and the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has more than 100 staff members actively working on the outbreak, a governmental health official said on Wednesday.
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