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Washington, Jul 7: President Donald Trump on Tuesday formally started the withdrawal of the United States from the World Health Organization, making good on threats to deprive the UN body of its top funding source over its response to the coronavirus.

Public health advocates and Trump's political opponents voiced outrage at the departure from the Geneva-based body, which leads the global fight on maladies from polio to measles to mental health -- as well as Covid-19, at a time when cases have again been rising around the world.

After threatening to suspend the $400 million (Dh1.47 billion) in annual US contributions and then announcing a withdrawal, the Trump administration has formally sent a notice to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, a State Department spokesperson said.

The withdrawal is effective in one year -- July 6, 2021 -- and Joe Biden, Trump's presumptive Democratic opponent, is virtually certain to stop it and stay in the WHO if he wins the November election.

A spokesman for Guterres and the global health body itself confirmed that the United States, a key founding WHO member, gave its notice.

In a speech earlier in the day, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said of Covid-19, "National unity and global solidarity are more important than ever to defeat a common enemy."

In line with conditions set when the WHO was set up in 1948, the United States can leave within one year but must meet its remaining assessed financial obligations, the UN spokesman said.

'Total control'

In late May, Trump said that China exerted "total control" over the WHO and accused the UN body led by Tedros, an Ethiopian doctor and diplomat, of failing to implement reforms.

Blaming China for the coronavirus, Trump, a frequent critic of the UN, said the United States would redirect funding "to other worldwide and deserving, urgent, global public health needs."

Democratic lawmakers have accused Trump of seeking to deflect criticism from his handling of the pandemic in the United States, which has suffered by far the highest death toll of any nation despite the president's stated hope that the virus will disappear.

"To call Trump's response to Covid chaotic and incoherent doesn't do it justice," said Senator Robert Menendez, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee.

"This won't protect American lives or interests -- it leaves Americans sick and America alone," he wrote on Twitter.

Representative Ami Bera, himself a physician, said that the United States and World Health Organization had worked "hand in hand" to eradicate smallpox and nearly defeat polio.

"Our cases are increasing," Bera said of Covid-19. "If the WHO is to blame: why has the US been left behind while many countries from South Korea to New Zealand to Vietnam to Germany return to normal?"

Even some of Trump's Republican allies had voiced hope that he was exerting pressure rather than making a final decision to abandon the World Health Organization.

The investigative news outlet ProPublica reported last month that most of Trump's aides were blindsided by the WHO withdrawal announcement, which he made during an appearance about China. 

The Trump administration has said that the WHO ignored early signs of human-to-human transmission in China, including warnings from Taiwan -- which, due to Beijing's pressure, is not part of the UN body.

While many public health advocates share some criticism of the WHO, they question what other options the world body had other than to work with China, where Covid-19 was first detected late last year in the city of Wuhan.

The anti-poverty campaign ONE said the United States should work to reform, not abandon, the WHO.

"Withdrawing from the World Health Organization amidst an unprecedented global pandemic is an astounding action that puts the safety of all Americans the world at risk," it said.

May 8: Thousands of migrants have been stranded “all over the world” where they face a heightened risk of COVID-19 infection, the head of the UN migration agency International Organization for Migration (IOM) has said.

IOM Director-General António Vitorino said that more onerous health-related travel restrictions might discriminate disproportionately against migrant workers in future.

“Health is the new wealth,” Vitorino said, citing proposals by some countries to introduce the so-called immunity passports and use mobile phone apps designed to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus.

“In lots of countries in the world, we already have a system of screening checks to identify the health of migrants, above all malaria, tuberculosis… HIV-AIDS, and now I believe that there will be increased demands in health controls for regular migrants,” he said on Thursday.

Travel restrictions to try to limit the spread of the pandemic has left people on the move more vulnerable than ever and unable to work to support themselves, Vitorino told journalists via videoconference.

“There are thousands of stranded migrants all over the world.

 “In South-East Asia, in East Africa, in Latin America, because of the closing of the borders and with the travel restrictions, lots of migrants who were on the move; some of them wanted to return precisely because of the pandemic,” he said.

They are blocked, some in large groups, some in small, in the border areas, in very difficult conditions without access to minimal care, especially health screening, Vitorino said.

“We have been asking the governments to allow the humanitarian workers and the health workers to have access to (them),” he said.

Turning to Venezuelan migrants, who are believed to number around five million amidst a worsening economic crisis in the country, the IOM chief said “thousands… have lost their jobs in countries like Ecuador and Colombia and are returning back to Venezuela in large crowds without any health screening and being quarantined when they go back”.

In a statement, the IOM highlighted the plight of migrants left stranded in the desert in west, central and eastern Africa, either after having been deported without the due process, or abandoned by the smugglers.

The IOM’s immediate priorities for migrants include ensuring that they have access to healthcare and other basic social welfare assistance in their host country.

Among the UN agency’s other immediate concerns is preventing the spread of new coronavirus infection in more than 1,100 camps that it manages across the world.

They include the Cox’s Bazar complex in Bangladesh, home to around one million mainly ethnic Rohingya from Myanmar, the majority having fled persecution.

So far, no cases of infection have been reported there, the IOM chief said, adding that preventative measures have been communicated to the hundreds of thousands of camp residents, while medical capacity has been boosted.

Beyond the immediate health threat of COVID-19 infection, migrants also face growing stigmatization from which they need protection, Vitorino said.

Allowing hate speech and xenophobic narratives to thrive unchallenged also threatens to undermine the public health response to COVID-19, he said, before noting that migrant workers make up a significant percentage of the health sector in many developed countries including the UK, the US and Switzerland.

Populist narratives targeting migrants as carriers of disease could also destabilise national security through social upheaval and countries’ post-COVID economic recovery by removing critical workers in agriculture and service industries, he said.

Remittances have already seen a 30 per cent drop during the pandemic, Vitorino said, citing the World Bank data, meaning that some USD 20 billion has not been sent home to families in countries where up to 15 per cent of their gross domestic product comes from pay packets earned abroad.

Vitorino, in a plea, urged to give the health of migrants as much attention as that of the host populations in all countries.

“It is quite clear that health is the new wealth and that health concerns will be introduced in the mobility systems - not just for migration - but as a whole; where travelling for business or professional reasons, health will be the new gamechanger in town.

“If the current pandemic leads to a two or even three-tier mobility system, then we will have to try to solve the problem – the problem of the pandemic - but at the same time we have created a new problem of deepening the inequalities,” he said.

Jakarta, Mar 15: Indonesia's transport minister is in intensive care after testing positive for the novel coronavirus, an official has said, as schools and tourist attractions were ordered to close over the health threat.

Transportation Minister Budi Karya Sumadi was receiving treatment at an army hospital in Jakarta, State Secretary Pratikno said on Saturday.

A hospital spokesman said Sumadi was encountering difficulty breathing but that his condition was improving.

Pratikno said Sumadi was involved in virus mitigation efforts, particularly the evacuation of Indonesians from epicenters of the outbreak, and that President Joko Widodo had called for tests to be carried out on other ministers.

Cases of the virus in Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous country, have jumped from zero two weeks ago to 96, with five deaths, according to government spokesperson Achmad Yurianto.

He also said the virus has spread outside Greater Jakarta to Bandung in West Java, Solo in Central Java, Manado in North Sulawesi, Pontianak in West Kalimantan, as well as holiday havens Yogyakarta and Bali.

Following the increase, the government on Saturday established a task force on COVID-19 mitigation.

Jakarta's Governor Anies Baswedan announced that schools would close for two weeks starting Monday, and ordered the closure of city-owned tourist attractions, such as Ragunan Zoo and Ancol beach.

He emphasized that Jakarta would not be locked down but urged people "to be responsible" and called for social distancing when possible.

Similarly, the administration of Solo, Central Java, Friday announced that schools and tourist attractions would close after a coronavirus patient died in the region.

The World Health Organization has said it is particularly concerned about high-risk nations with weaker health systems, which who may lack the facilities to identify cases.

A day after declaring the coronavirus outbreak to be pandemic this week, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called Indonesia's president Widodo and both agreed to "scale up cooperation."