Top World Health Organization Official Stepping Down

Jeremy Farrar in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 19, 2017. Ruben Sprich/ReutersDr. Jeremy Farrar, who has been one of the World Health Organization’s top officials since 2023, is stepping down soon, a spokesperson for the organization said on Aug. 18.Farrar, 64, is reaching the retirement age of the organization, known as the WHO, spokesperson Christian Lindmeier told reporters during a press conference in Geneva.“That’s why he is retiring at the end of September,” Lindmeier said. “That’s all I have at this point.”Lindmeier declined to say who would be replacing Farrar.Farrar was not part of the briefing, which primarily covered the still-ongoing Ebola outbreak in Congo, and he could not be reached for comment.Farrar spent nearly 20 years directing clinical research at a hospital in Vietnam before becoming the leader of a charity organization called the Wellcome Trust. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he was part of a group that advised the UK government.Farrar was also in contact with top U.S. officials during the pandemic, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, participating in several teleconferences that included Fauci and other scientists who later came out against the theory that COVID-19 came from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, near where the first cases were detected. Farrar also helped craft a paper with some of the scientists that dismissed the possibility of a lab origin despite not being listed as an author or contributor of the paper, according to emails obtained and released by U.S. lawmakers. Farrar has not appeared to comment on the emails, while Fauci declined to answer questions during a U.S. congressional hearing in July.Farrar joined the WHO as chief scientist in 2023. The WHO described him at the time as leading efforts to support “science-based solutions to address three urgent challenges: infectious disease, mental health, and the effects of climate change on health.”The WHO promoted him to assistant director-general in 2025.Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the WHO, will see his final term end in 2027. Members will vote on his successor.The WHO has faced criticism over its actions during the pandemic, including being closely aligned with the Chinese Communist Party, which suppressed information about the initial outbreak. Due to those actions, the United States withdrew from the organization in January, a year after it filed notice and cut funding to the group. With less money, the WHO started a reorganization involving layoffs.“2025 was a very difficult year,” Farrar told Le Temps in March. “When you imagine any organization—public or private—reducing its workforce by 30 percent, it is extremely painful. Many institutions usually do this gradually: 10 per cent one year, another 10 per cent the next. Doing it all in a single year was awful, and the organization lost many good people. Human resources did their best.”