Argentina will withdraw from the World Health Organisation (WHO), the country’s presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni said at a press conference, La Nacion reports.
The newspaper released a statement from the office of Argentine President Javier Milei. It said the WHO “failed the most serious test: it promoted perpetual quarantines without scientific support” during the years of the coronavirus pandemic.
“Quarantines caused one of the biggest economic disasters in world history and, according to the 1998 Rome Statute, the quarantine model can be qualified as a crime against humanity,” the statement also said.
The president’s office accused the WHO of “supporting a government that has deprived children of going to school, left hundreds of thousands of workers without income, driven enterprises, small and medium-sized businesses to bankruptcy,” costing Argentina 130,000 lives.
“The WHO’s prescriptions do not work because they are the result of political influence rather than being based on scientific evidence,” the Argentine presidential office said.
It added that the WHO’s actions confirmed its unwillingness to change its approach and admit mistakes. Instead, the organisation “prefers to arrogate to itself powers that do not correspond to it and to limit the sovereignty of countries,” the statement said.
The Argentine presidential office called on the global community to “urgently” rethink the purpose of supranational organisations “that do not fulfil the objectives for which they were created” but engage in international politics and “seek to impose their position on member countries.”
“A strategic assessment is being made of each of the possible options for leaving WHO,” sources told La Nacion.
Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, Milei has opposed government restrictions and has been sceptical about the COVID-19 vaccine. He opposed lockdown policies and, after coming to power, refused at the state level to participate in new WHO initiatives. In particular, under him Argentina did not sign an agreement to fight pandemics.
US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to withdraw from the WHO on January 21.
According to the new US president, his country pays too much money to the organisation compared to others.
During his first presidential term in 2020, Trump announced his withdrawal from the WHO, the text of the executive order said that the organisation was not carrying out the necessary reforms and acted incorrectly during the COVID-19 pandemic.
