MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
At 5 a.m. California time, when it is still dark outside, a member of that state’s department of public health hops on a weekly call. The topic? Health emergencies all over the world. That is because California has announced it is joining one of the World Health Organization’s monitoring efforts. NPR’s Gabrielle Emanuel reports.
GABRIELLE EMANUEL, BYLINE: For years, the U.S. federal government participated in these calls, which are organized by the WHO. But last week, the U.S. announced it had withdrawn from the WHO. As the Trump administration says goodbye, California is saying hello. And Illinois says it is making preparations to do the same.
ERICA PAN: They’re trying to balance time zones around the world.
EMANUEL: Erica Pan, the director of the California Department of Public Health, says the hope is that participating in these WHO calls will inform California leaders and others.
PAN: We really want to step up and provide some leadership and be able to scale that to help support our colleagues in other states.
EMANUEL: While individual states can’t join as full-fledged members of the WHO – that’s limited to countries – they can join the WHO’s Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, which hosts these calls. This is a group of over 350 governments, labs, academic institutions that are constantly coordinating around detecting and responding to new health threats like SARS and Ebola. Right now…
PAN: In the middle of, you know, respiratory virus season, they’ve been talking about flu surveillance.
EMANUEL: They share information about what diseases are circulating where, how they might spread and what to do about them.
PAN: And just helps us anticipate threats earlier, rather than reacting after formal case reporting.
EMANUEL: This move by states to try and fill information gaps is part of a broader trend, says Gavin Yamey, a professor of global health at Duke University.
GAVIN YAMEY: This is an extraordinarily smart and savvy play.
EMANUEL: He says the federal government is vacating its previous public health functions. So some states are now taking on more public health roles, things like making their own vaccine recommendations and, Yamey says, now making moves to get a seat at the international table monitoring disease outbreaks.
YAMEY: It’s a brand-new way of kind of organizing and structuring U.S. participation in global health.
EMANUEL: Some also see politics at play. Brett Schaefer is at the right-leaning think tank the American Enterprise Institute. He says that the governors of California and Illinois could be eyeing presidential bids in 2028.
BRETT SCHAEFER: There’s a political motivation in placing themselves opposite President Trump and his administration.
EMANUEL: He calls the decision to join this part of WHO interesting, but…
SCHAEFER: It’s not in any way equivalent to the U.S. government being a member state of the World Health Organization.
EMANUEL: He says there are legitimate reasons for the U.S. withdrawing from the whole WHO, going back to its handling of COVID. But Schaefer would like to see the federal government keep participating in a limited way, like with this outbreak alert network, just so country leaders know what’s happening with diseases elsewhere. But the State Department told NPR it will not be participating in regular WHO-led or managed events and that California is trying to score cheap political points. The Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement to NPR, the United States is charting its own course on global health engagement grounded in accountability, transparency and the expertise of America’s public health institutions.
Gabrielle Emanuel, NPR News.
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