The Trump Administration's decision to halt funding to the World Health Organization (WHO) would mean a great loss on the COVID-19 pandemic response of the healthcare sector globally.
In Southeast Asia, healthcare systems are certain to be impacted by this development. As it is, hospitals in the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and other SE Asian countries are already strained by the COVID-19 crisis from lack of medical personnel, personal protective equipment (PPE), and even necessary infrastructure to attend to poor communities constituting a large portion of countries in the region. Thus, a disruption in WHO’s assistance would have a crippling effect on the health systems of beneficiary countries
For instance, due to insufficient PPE provision for health workers and immediate systematic mass testing, there are now more than 700 health workers in the Philippines who contracted COVID-19, including 339 doctors. In Indonesia, there is testing capacity but the national government remains dependent on foreign aid to ramp up supply of test kits. And a similar scenario is being fought in Cambodia where the country’s hospitals and other health facilities including rural health centers are confronting the outbreak with a huge lack of specialists and equipment to handle the coronavirus impacts.
That is why it is alarming that rather than reinforcing the global public health community’s response and sharing resources during this critical time, Trump decided to leave international agencies, whose sole purpose is to save lives, hanging.
Health Care Without Harm (HCWH) has been maintaining a long-established relationship with WHO, and we have seen how its technical expertise and leadership played pivotal roles in helping governments address the coronavirus pandemic, as well as other preexisting healthcare issues and public health impacts of the climate crisis.
HCWH Southeast Asia along with our global and other regional offices, stand beside WHO and other health networks and leaders who are at the frontline battling COVID-19. In solidarity, we will continue to advocate for secured and increased funding resources for WHO and related agencies.###