Robert F Kennedy Jr and Marco Rubio announced the US was no longer a member for first time since WHO was created in 1948.

United States Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio have jointly announced the “completion” of US withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO).

The announcement on Thursday marks the first time the US has not been a member of the WHO since it joined as a founding member in 1948, though US President Donald Trump had signalled his intention to withdraw from the body in 2020 during his first term in office.

The joint statement from Rubio and Kennedy, a vaccine sceptic, primarily blamed the WHO’s “failures during the COVID-19 pandemic” as the reason for the withdrawal.

“Going forward, US engagement with the WHO will be limited strictly to effectuate our withdrawal and to safeguard the health and safety of the American people,” Rubio and Kennedy said, noting that all US funding for the WHO had ceased.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters earlier this month that the organisation had responded to funding shortfalls associated with the US withdrawal by making cuts.

United Nations Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters on Thursday that “for all intents and purposes” the US is “no longer participating in the work of the World Health Organization”, but that some “legal details will likely have to be worked out”.

“It is clear we would love to see the United States be a full participant in the work of the World Health Organization, like we want to see every country,” Dujarric said.

“If there’s an issue that is clearly, that knows no border, that doesn’t respect territorial integrity, so to speak, are health issues,” he said.

“Viruses, non-communicable diseases, all of these issues need and should be worked out with international cooperation. The World Health Organization is the place to do it,” he added.

‘Withdrawal is reckless and makes us all more vulnerable’

President Trump, who has faced criticism for his response to COVID-19, including from his own top health officials, announced that he planned to withdraw the US from the Geneva-based WHO on January 20, 2025, the first day his second term began in the White House. However, a clause created by the US meant that the withdrawal did not take effect until this week.

The WHO’s chief legal officer, Steven Solomon, told reporters earlier this month that the founders of the organisation did not include a withdrawal clause because they saw it as a “truly universal organisation that would make the world safer”.

However, Solomon said the US created a provision that would allow it to withdraw from the body if it met two conditions: Giving one year’s notice and meeting its “financial obligations … in full for the current fiscal year”, while also noting that the US was “in arrears on its payments” for 2024 and 2025.

Responding to the US withdrawal, public health advocate Lucky Tran wrote on social media that the “WHO has played a huge role in bringing countries together to reduce death and disease at an unprecedented scale”.

“It is by no means perfect, but we can only improve it by continuing to participate. Withdrawal is reckless and makes us all more vulnerable,” Tran added.

The WHO, which had 194 members before the US withdrawal, representing all members of the UN except Liechtenstein, which has a population of fewer than 50,000 people, often plays a coordinating role on health issues that transcend international borders.

This includes actively sending doctors and other health experts to help during humanitarian disasters, such as Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, as well as responding to a wide range of communicable and non-communicable diseases, including Ebola and Tuberculosis.