(Washington) The Eminent Dr Anthony Fauci, the main adviser to US President Joe Biden on COVID-19 and who had become the face of the fight against the pandemic in the United States, announced Monday at 81 that he would leave office in December.
Posted at 11:32
He also announced that he would be retiring on that date from his position as director of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which he had held for 38 years, while specifying that it was not yet a question of him to “retire”.
“I plan to pursue the next phase of my career with all the energy and passion I have left for my field,” he said in a statement.
President Joe Biden immediately sent “his deep thanks” to Dr.r Fauci for his work. “The United States is stronger, more resilient and healthier because of him,” he said in a statement.
Mr. Fauci has served under seven different US presidents, starting with Ronald Reagan.
“It has been the honor of my life to lead NIAID,” he wrote, listing the crises he has gone through: AIDS epidemic, Ebola, Zika, etc.
In 2020, this doctor by training, already famous in the world of infectious diseases and the fight against AIDS but then still little known to the general public, was thrown into the limelight by joining the presidential cell on the coronavirus. , when Donald Trump was in power.
His simple, tirelessly repeated messages made him the reassuring figure the United States needed.
But he, who had always been careful to stay away from politics, gradually became the bane of conservatives, and the favorite target of anti-vaccines, in a context of very strong politicization of the health crisis in the United States.
During a hearing in the Senate, Mr. Fauci had accused an elected Republican of encouraging people making death threats against him.