UNITED States of America has formally withdrawn its membership of World Health Organisation (WHO), Bob Menendez, US Senator from New Jersey confirmed.

This is coming at a time the US alone accounts for 27 percent of the world’s coronavirus cases.

President Donald Trump had in May threatened to exit WHO and permanently end funding to the body, New York Times reported.

With over three million confirmed cases, and over 133,ooo deaths, the US is the epicentre of COVID-19, which has killed over 539,000 people and infected over 11. 6 million persons globally.

Menendez in a tweet shared on Tuesday, stated that that the Trump administration notified Congress of its formal withdrawal from WHO.

He described it as a wrong move that won’t serve the interest of America.

“Congress received notification that POTUS officially withdrew the US from the WHO in the midst of a pandemic,” he wrote on Twitter.

“To call Trump’s response to COVID chaotic & incoherent doesn’t do it justice. This won’t protect American lives or interests—it leaves Americans sick & America alone.”

The country’s withdrawal from WHO came after President Donald Trump’s temporary suspension of the public health body’s funding.

In April, Trump had ordered the halt of U.S funding to WHO, citing its role in “mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus.

The US is the global health body’s largest single funder. In 2019, the US contributed about $450 million to WHO and so far this year, it has contributed about $34 million in membership dues to WHO according to Nature.

Trump had told the director-general of the World Health Organization he would permanently end all funding to the organization if it did not “commit to substantive improvements within the next 30 days.

He also wrote that the United States would reconsider its membership in the WHO because it was “so clearly not serving America’s interests.”

“It is clear the repeated missteps by you and your organization in responding to the pandemic have been extremely costly for the world,” the president wrote in a four-page letter outlining his grievances against the organization and its leader, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.