The World Health Organization hailed Thursday good collaboration with theUnited Statesand US institutions over a deadly hantavirus outbreak, despite Washington’s announced withdrawal from the UN agency.
Three people have died and five others have been sickened in a rare hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship in the Atlantic that has sparked international alarm.
Efforts are under way in a number of countries to monitor passengers who had left the MV Hondius before the outbreak was confirmed last weekend, and who had returned home.
Several passengers have also reportedly returned to the United States, which under President Donald Trump has announced its withdrawal from the United Nations health agency.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said technical information was still being exchanged.
“As we speak, things are going actually as it used to be, meaning sharing information from our side, and also we are getting information from the US side,” he told reporters, from the WHO headquarters in Geneva.
The WHO’s emergency alert and response director Abdi Rahman Mahamud agreed.
“In terms of collaboration with US and US institutions, it has been going very well on the technical side,” he said.
“We’ve been exchanging information,” he said, adding that there had been a good flow of information with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention especially.
He stressed that the United States remains a state party to the International Health Regulations (IHR), and that in that context “back and forth communication is going on”.
Source: Insider Paper
