The World Health Organization (WHO) is purely focused on saving lives and halting the coronavirus pandemic, its chief said Wednesday after USPresident Donald Trump announced he was freezing funding for the WHO.
“There is no time to waste. WHO’s singular focus is on working to serve all people to save lives and stop the COVID-19 pandemic,” director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Twitter following Trump’s decision.
Trump said Tuesday he was freezing the funding pending a review into the UN health agency’s “role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus”, adding: “everybody knows what’s going on there”.
The US is the biggest individual contributor to the WHO’s funds.
Tedros was due to host one of his thrice-weekly virtual press conferences later Wednesday from the organisation’s headquarters in Geneva. Tedros tweeted the WHO’s updated strategic preparedness and response plan for dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, which was released on Tuesday.
“The updated WHO global Covid-19 strategy guides the public health response at national and subnational levels, including practical guidance for strategic action, tailored to the local context,” he said.
“One of the main things we’ve learned in the past months about Covid-19 is that the faster all cases are found, tested, isolated and cared for, the harder we make it for the virus to spread.
“This principle will save lives and mitigate the economic impact of the pandemic.” Trump’s move has drawn criticism from the United Nations, Russia, China, the European Union, the African Union and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, another major WHO contributor through his foundation.
Trump’s freeze on funding for the WHO is a selfish response to the global pandemic, a senior Russian official said. “We see yesterday’s announcement by Washington on freezing funding of the WHO as most concerning. It is a sign of the very selfish approach of the US authorities to what is happening in the world due to the pandemic,” deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said.
Iran said the world is learning that the United States “kills people”, after President Donald Trump suspended US funding for the World Health Organization amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif likened the funding freeze to the United States’ “maximum pressure” campaign against his country. “The shameful defunding of WHO amid a pandemic will live in infamy,” Zarif wrote on Twitter. “The world is learning what Iran has known & experienced all along,” he said. “US regime’s bullying, threatening & vainglorious blathering isn’t just an addiction: it kills people,” added Zarif.
The European Union said Trump has “no reason” to freeze WHO funding at this critical stage and called for measures to promote unity instead of division.
On Twitter, Bill Gates — whose foundation was the second-largest donor to the WHO for its latest two-year budget, contributing over $530 million in 2018 and 2019 — wrote that stopping funding for WHO during a world health crisis “is as dangerous as it sounds.”
Germany’s foreign minister, Heiko Maas, pushed back at Trump’s announcement. “Placing blame doesn’t help,” he wrote on Twitter.
“The virus knows no borders. We must work closely against Covid-19.”
The Netherlands also threw its support behind the WHO. “Now is not the time to hold back funding. Once the pandemic is under control, lessons can be learned. For now, focus on overcoming this crisis,” Sigrid Kaag, minister for foreign trade and development cooperation, said on Twitter.
In Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian says the country is “seriously concerned” about the US Government’s decision to suspend funding.
Still, some global health academics said Trump’s attacks on WHO might actually strengthen the agency’s credibility.