Congress must quickly reverse President Donald Trump’s defunding of the World Health Organization.

This should be a bipartisan priority, to provide U.S. leadership in combating the worldwide pandemic and support WHO’s broader, ongoing global-health mission.

The WHO made errors in its initial response to the coronavirus but so did Trump, who is scapegoating and undermining a critical health organization when it’s desperately needed to save lives.

While the U.S. and Europe battle to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, I can’t help but think about how Africa will cope when it becomes the next epicenter. Based on the three-month-old data that we have about the virus and its spread, guidelines on prevention, containment and mitigation have been set by the World Health Organization (WHO). So far, several African governments have adopted the U.S. and European approach that is centered on lockdowns, social distancing and frequent hand washing with soap and water.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, health departments had limited staff, resources and time to support the diverse public health needs of our communities. This system will be further strained as the epidemic grows. We must immediately create a national public health reserve to shore up public health systems. 

The Coler Lab at Seattle Children’s Research Institute is using their expertise to support the clinical trial of an experimental coronavirus vaccine funded by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health. The trial is being conducted at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle, part of NIAID’s Infectious Diseases Clinical Research Consortium.