Argentina has formally severed ties with the World Health Organisation (WHO), becoming the second major economy to exit the body this year and deepening a funding and leadership crisis at the agency that African nations — including Ghana — depend on most heavily for disease surveillance, vaccination support, and outbreak response.
Argentina’s withdrawal took effect on March 17, exactly one year after President Javier Milei’s administration issued its formal notice to the United Nations Secretary-General, completing the process within the timeframe required under the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.
Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno confirmed the exit, saying Argentina would continue to pursue international health cooperation through bilateral and regional agreements while fully retaining sovereignty over its own health policy decisions. Despite the withdrawal, Argentina will remain within the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), meaning it does not exit the hemisphere-wide health framework entirely.
Argentina was a founding member of the WHO since the organisation’s establishment in 1948, making its departure one of the most historically significant exits in the agency’s nearly eight decades of existence.
Milei’s move closely mirrors that of US President Donald Trump, whose administration completed America’s own WHO withdrawal in January 2026 after issuing its notice on the first day of Trump’s return to the White House in January 2025. Both leaders criticised the WHO’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, including its guidance on masking, social distancing, and vaccination campaigns.
The dual departure of two of the Western Hemisphere’s largest economies represents the most significant challenge to the WHO’s authority and finances since its founding. As of March 2026, the Trump administration has initiated or completed withdrawals from 66 international bodies and treaties, of which the WHO exit is among the most consequential for global health architecture.
The consequences fall heaviest on Africa. Public health experts warned when Argentina’s intention was first announced that stepping outside the WHO framework would complicate coordination during future cross-border health emergencies. For African countries, that warning applies with far greater force: the WHO’s Africa Regional Office coordinates disease surveillance across 47 member states, manages outbreak responses from Marburg to mpox, and channels access to pooled vaccine purchasing mechanisms that individual governments could not replicate bilaterally.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has already stated that the US withdrawal alone makes both America and the world less safe, and has begun emergency consultations with remaining member states on funding replacement strategies. Whether those replacement funds can be mobilised at the scale needed and at the speed required by Africa’s disease burden remains the defining unanswered question facing global health governance in 2026.
