The chairperson of the African Union Commission Moussa Faki Mahamat is urging the Trump administration to rethink its withdraw from the World Health Organisation (WHO).
In his first full day in office new US President Donald Trump made a series of executive orders one of which is to withdraw his country from the WHO.
Health experts warned that the move renders the world and even the United States less safe from the threats of infectious diseases and other global health emergencies.
AUC chief Mahamat in a statement on Thursday said he was dismayed to learn of Washington’s announcement to withdraw from the WHO, a key global health agency that continues to impact the lives of the world’s surging populations.
The US, as a member of WHO, has had a crucial role in shaping the agency’s instruments and norms on public health security and well-being over the past seven decades, he said.
He said in Africa, the USA was an early and strong supporter towards the establishment of Africa CDC, the African Union’s technical agency for public health emergencies that works with WHO and the global WHO membership to detect, prepare for, respond to and recover from pandemics.
“Today, now more than ever, the world depends on WHO to carry out its mandate to ensure global public health security as a shared common good,” the AUC chairperson revealed.
Mahamat therefore hopes the new Trump administration will reconsider its decision to withdraw from this key global organisation of which it is a founding member.
MG/as/APA