The World Health Assembly takes place in virtual mode. U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said the World Health Organization failed to respond in time to the spread of the coronavirus, which led to the intensification of the pandemic. The American official made the statement during the World Health Assembly, which is taking place virtually this year – its participants are discussing the work of the WHO.
Representatives from 194 World Health Organization (WHO) member states are attending the Assembly, and proposals were made during the meeting to review how effectively the global community, including WHO, has responded to the coronavirus pandemic. “We have to be honest about one of the main reasons this outbreak got out of control,” Azar said. “This organization proved incapable of getting the information that the whole world needed, and that incapacity cost many people their lives.”
Opening the meeting was Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who has recently had to defend his country’s actions at the start of the pandemic. He stated that the information provided by the Chinese authorities was “the most reliable and transparent” and called for any investigations to be postponed until the pandemic was fully under global control. Xi Jinping added that China would provide $2 billion over the next two years to help countries affected by the pandemic. He also offered to provide other countries with a Covid-19 vaccine once it is developed.
An official representative of the U.S. Security Council called Beijing’s proposals “an attempt to divert attention from holding the Chinese government accountable for failing to meet its obligations. The United States believes that Beijing has concealed the true scale of the disaster and the pace of the epidemic. Donald Trump has repeatedly said as much. Against this background, relations between the United States and China have deteriorated noticeably.
China claims that calls for an international inquiry into the circumstances of the pandemic will divert resources and attention from the fight against the coronavirus itself. In the past, Washington has also repeatedly criticized the World Health Organization. According to the American authorities, the organization’s leadership blindly believed the data coming from Beijing and failed to assess the seriousness of the threat. As early as mid-April, the United States stopped funding the World Health Organization and is promoting its own vaccine development program. Some experts recall that the spread of the infection began in China in January, but the WHO did not declare a pandemic until mid-March, when Covid-19 had already caused thousands of deaths in countries around the world.
At the opening of the Assembly, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he welcomed the proposal to analyze the Organization’s activities and would give it his attention in the near future. German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged conference participants to do everything in their power to create an effective early warning system for pandemics. “The World Health Organization is a legitimate global institution that is being pulled in all directions. That is why we have to constantly think about how we can improve the way the WHO works. In particular, we must ensure a sustainable financing system,” said Merkel. “We need a strong WHO to fight Covid-19. The WHO is us, its member states,” supported President Emmanuel Macron of France, Angela Merkel. He also said that the development of a vaccine will become a “global public good” and called for equal access for all countries.
The Covid-19 outbreak began in China in December of last year. Since then, more than 4.7 million people worldwide have been infected with the coronavirus and more than 300,000 have died. The European Union and other countries, including the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, want to find out how the pandemic was handled and what lessons can be learned. According to Virginia Batu-Henriksson, press officer for external relations at the Council of the European Union, such an inquiry would need to answer a number of key questions. “How did the pandemic develop, what was the epidemiology? All of this needs to be clarified in order to avoid a similar pandemic in the future,” she said, adding that now is not the time to “play the blame game. The vote on the draft resolution will take place on Tuesday and will require a two-thirds majority for adoption; 116 out of 194 countries have already expressed their support for the project.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the WHO, is sharply criticized. In April, a European Union report accused China of spreading misinformation about the coronavirus crisis. The European External Action Service said at the time that Russia – and to a lesser extent China – had “exploited conspiracy theories” in the European Union and neighboring countries.
We explain quickly, simply, and clearly what happened, why it matters, and what will happen next. The number of offers should remain: episodes. The end of the story: Podcast Advertising According to WHO representative Dr. Margaret Harris, the World Health Assembly is “always an occasion for careful scrutiny of WHO’s activities. However, she assures that WHO is “paying full attention” to coordinating efforts to find answers to key questions, scientific research and efforts to eliminate the pandemic.
The WHO is supposed to represent the interests of all its member countries equally, but it is currently at the center of a political confrontation between China and the United States. Donald Trump, who is running for president again this year, has faced harsh criticism for his response to the pandemic. In response, Trump blamed China and the WHO for failing to contain the spread of the virus. The culmination of this conflict was the decision by the United States, WHO’s largest single sponsor, to suspend funding for the organization.
The Assembly is expected to hear calls to expand WHO’s powers, which would allow the organization’s inspectors to visit countries at the onset of disease outbreaks and conduct independent investigations. In January and February, WHO sent a group of specialists to China, but it was a joint mission with Chinese officials.
In China, it is believed that the investigation will have a negative impact on the ongoing fight against the coronavirus. China has already rejected calls for an independent international investigation into the Covid-19 outbreak. In April, senior Chinese diplomat Chen Wen told the BBC that such demands were politically motivated and that such an investigation would only divert attention and resources from the fight against the virus. The coronavirus outbreak began late last year in Wuhan, when the first infection was reported at a wildlife market. After that, high-ranking American politicians speculated that the source of the virus could be a Chinese laboratory studying coronaviruses in bats. This version is rejected in China itself. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also said there was “serious evidence” that the virus came from the Wuhan lab. On Saturday, however, he softened his position considerably, stating on television, “We know it all started in Wuhan, but we don’t know where or by whom. The draft resolution of the World Health Assembly states that “the animal origin of the virus and its route of transmission to humans, including the possible role of intermediate hosts”.