WHO agrees to independent review in tense meeting

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has agreed to an independent review of the global coronavirus response and says it will begin as soon as possible.

Following the decision of the United States to defund the organisation, it has received hefty pledge of funds from China.

According to wire reports, Alex Azar, the US Health Secretary said Washington considered the WHO jointly responsible for the pandemic but did not name China as also culpable.

“We must be frank about one of the primary reasons this outbreak spun out of control,” he said on Monday.

“There was a failure by this organisation to obtain the information that the world needed, and that failure cost many lives.”

WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus defended the organisation’s response.

“WHO sounded the alarm early, and we sounded it often,” he said.

When the WHO declared a global emergency on 30 January there were fewer than 100 cases outside China, and no deaths, Tedros added.

Tedros was addressing a virtual meeting of the WHO’s decision-making body, the World Health Assembly.

The panel endorsed a review, but said conducting it now could hamper the WHO’s response to the pandemic.

It also said “an imperfect and evolving understanding” was not unusual when a new disease emerged.

In an apparent rejoinder to Trump, the panel said a “rising politicisation of pandemic response” was hindering the effort to defeat the virus.

A resolution drafted by the EU calling for an independent evaluation of the WHO’s performance appeared to have won consensus backing among the WHO’s 194 states. It was expected to be debated and adopted on Tuesday.

China has previously opposed calls for a review of the origin and spread of the coronavirus, but Xi signalled that Beijing would accept an impartial evaluation of the global response, once the pandemic is brought under control.

“This work needs a scientific and professional attitude, and needs to be led by the WHO. And the principles of objectivity and fairness need to be upheld,” he told the meeting via video.

“All along we have acted with openness and transparency and responsibility.”

He pledged $US2 billion over the next two years to help deal with Covid-19, especially in developing countries according to a Reuters report.