Illinois will enroll in the World Health Organization’s Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN), Governor JB Pritzker said on Tuesday, taking a step to maintain state access to internationally coordinated outbreak response after the United States completed its departure from the UN health agency last month.
Pritzker said the decision makes Illinois the second U.S. state to join GOARN in defiance of Republican President Donald Trump, following California, which also joined the network in January. The United States formally left the WHO last month after completing a one-year waiting period that began when President Trump signed an executive order on his first day back in office in January 2025.
In a post on the social media platform X, Pritzker wrote: "I refuse to sit by as Donald Trump undermines science and weakens our nation’s ability to detect and respond to global health threats."
In a separate statement, the governor framed the move as intended to preserve access to expertise and information at the state level. "By joining the World Health Organization’s coordinated network, GOARN, we are ensuring that our public health leaders - and the public - have the information, expertise, and partnerships they need to protect the people of our state," he said.
GOARN is described as a coordinated global network that responds to public health events around the world, including pandemics and disease outbreaks. The network comprises more than 360 technical institutions.
The announcement underscores a divergence between actions taken by some state governments and the federal administration following the U.S. exit from the WHO. Illinois’ enrollment follows California’s decision earlier this year and represents a state-level approach to preserving links to WHO-coordinated outbreak response resources and expertise.
Details on how Illinois will operationalize its participation in GOARN and how state engagement will interact with federal policy were not provided in the governor’s statement. The governor’s posts and statement emphasize maintaining information flows and partnerships that state public health leaders could draw upon when responding to disease threats.
The governor has been identified in public commentary as an outspoken critic of President Trump. The state’s move to join GOARN comes amid that broader political context and after the formal completion of the U.S. departure from the World Health Organization last month.