The decision was made after Trump signed an order indicating the United States would pull out of the global health agency.
Officials in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were ordered to stop working with the World Health Organization (WHO), effective immediately, according to a memorandum that was sent out this week.
John Nkengasong, a CDC official, issued a memo on Sunday to senior agency leaders that staff working with WHO must immediately stop their collaborations and “await further guidance.”
The move was made after President Donald Trump signed an executive order last week to extricate the United States from the WHO over what it said was the organization’s “mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic that arose out of Wuhan, China, and other global health crises,” among other issues.
The stop-work memo issued by Nkengasong applied to “all CDC staff engaging with WHO through technical working groups, coordinating centers, advisory boards, cooperative agreements or other means—in person or virtual,” while staff are not allowed to visit WHO offices.
Last week, the administration placed an immediate pause on all posts, reports, and communications issued by the CDC, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and other agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). That pause will remain in effect until at least Feb. 1, according to an internal memo issued by acting HHS Secretary Dorothy Fink.
Some exceptions, Fink said, would be made for communications that impact “critical health, safety, environmental, financial or nation security functions.” Those statements would have to be reviewed beforehand, she added.
The order targeting the CDC isn’t the only Trump action involving the federal health agency. He also froze spending on an anti-HIV program, which was started by President George W. Bush decades ago. That was suspended as part of a broader freeze on foreign aid for at least 90 days.
Under Trump’s order signaling the United States will leave the WHO, it sets a 12-month notice period to leave the health body and stop all financial contributions to its work. The order to withdraw from WHO did not take immediate effect as it requires the approval of Congress and that the United States will have to meet its financial obligations to WHO for the current fiscal year.
