Washington: Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s top infectious disease expert, said he plans to retire at the end of President Joe Biden’s term in January 2025.
Fauci, 81, was appointed director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in 1984, and has led research on HIV / AIDS, respiratory infections, Ebola, Zika and coronavirus. He has advised seven presidents and is Biden’s chief medical adviser.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Credit: AP
In an interview with Politico, Fauci said he hoped to “leave behind an institution where I have chosen the best people in the country, if not the world, who will continue my vision.”
“If someone says,‘ You’ll leave when we no longer have Covid, ’I’ll be 105,” he said.
“I think we’ll live with that.”
Asked on CNN on Monday when he planned to retire, Fauci said he has no specific retirement date in mind and has not started the process. He said he hopes to leave the government before the end of Biden’s current term, which ends in January 2025.
“When we reach the end of Biden ‘s first term, it is very likely that I will [retire]”Fauci said.” It’s extremely unlikely, in fact, I’m sure I won’t be here beyond January 2025. “
Fauci, for a long time a prominent figure in the government’s response to infectious diseases, became even more in the spotlight at the height of the coronavirus pandemic under then-President Donald Trump.
As the response to the pandemic became politicized, with Trump suggesting that the pandemic would “fade away,” promoting unproven treatment methods and slandering the scientists who opposed him, Fauci had to obtain security protection when he and his family received death and harassment threats.