World Health Organization responds to Trump criticisms on China
World Health Organization officials on Wednesday denied that the body was «China-centric» and said that the acute phase of a pandemic was not the time to cut funding, after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to put contributions on hold.
The United States is the top donor to the Geneva-based body that Trump said had issued bad advice during the new coronavirus outbreak.
U.S. contributions to WHO in 2019 exceeded $400 million US, almost double the second-largest member state contribution. China, in contrast, contributed $44 million.
«We are still in the acute phase of a pandemic so now is not the time to cut back on funding,» Dr. Hans Kluge, WHO regional director for Europe, told a virtual briefing in response to a question about Trump’s remarks.
Dr. Bruce Aylward, the Canadian-born senior adviser to the WHO director deneral, also defended the UN agency’s relationship with China, saying its work with Beijing authorities was important to understand the outbreak that began in Wuhan.
«It was absolutely critical in the early part of this outbreak to have full access to everything possible, to get on the ground and work with the Chinese to understand this,» he told reporters.
«This is what we did with every other hard-hit country like Spain and had nothing to do with China specifically.»
‘We will look at ending funding’
He also defended WHO recommendations to keep borders open, saying that China had worked very hard to identify and detect early cases and their contacts and ensure they did not travel in order to contain the outbreak.
Trump said in a tweet on Tuesday his administration would be giving «a good look» to U.S. funding for WHO.
«We will look at ending funding,» he said later at his daily news briefing at the White House.
While not part of Trump’s criticism, the WHO has encountered criticism with respect to Taiwan.
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Taiwan is excluded from the WHO because of diplomatic pressure from China, which does not consider it an independent state. The U.S. State Department has previously lobbied for Taiwan’s greater participation in the international fight against COVID-19, as it appears to have achieved some success in limiting the spread of the virus.
On Europe, Kluge described the outbreak of coronavirus there as «very concerning» and urged governments to give «very careful consideration» before relaxing measures to control its spread.
«A dramatic rise in cases across the Atlantic skews what remains a very concerning picture in Europe,» he said. «We still have a long way to go in the marathon.»
