The Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Tedros Ghebreyesus, has warned that the public health excellence of the U.S Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) must be protected.
In a post on X, Ghebreyesus described the CDC as a global centre of excellence whose practices have inspired the establishment of similar public health bodies around the world.
“When I was Ethiopia’s Health Minister, I sent a team to Atlanta to learn from the US CDC, and a significant part of what the Ethiopian Public Health Agency does is based on these best practices,” he said.
“The establishment of the Africa CDC, which I proposed at the African Union summit in Abuja in 2013 when I was Foreign Minister, was also inspired by the US CDC. Through global cooperation, many countries have not only learned from the US CDC, but they have also chosen to use the name ‘CDC’ for their national institutes.”
WHO’s comments come as the CDC grapples with leadership instability, mass resignations, and threats of funding cuts.
Ghebreyesus also noted in his post that the WHO has enjoyed a close and longstanding partnership with the CDC, giving the US access to global health data and outbreak alerts, while enabling other countries to benefit from American science.
The disruption at the CDC has raised fears about US’s readiness to handle infectious disease outbreaks.
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