Know why President Donald Trump opted to halt funds to WHO

 

The US President alleges that the World Health Organization has failed in performing its duty to sound a warning soon after the attack of COVID-19 in China. Instead, it backed China, the country where this COVID-19 originated. The US President Donald Trump has decided to halt funds to World Health Organization (WHO) at a the time when the entire world is reeling under the COVID-19 virus attack. Naturally, this extreme step has evoked worldwide criticism. But hardly, there was any discussion on what made the US President Donald Trump to take such a drastic step?

 

We all know that the novel coronavirus originated from the Chinese city of Wuhan located in Central China’s Hubei province in November 2019. It has till date taken a toll of over two million people worldwide including over 25000 US citizens, according to John Hopkins University.

 

 

The World Health Organization (WHO) as a global healthcare organization, has a definite role to playa in this trying time and it is where President Trump questioned its role. He halted the flow of funds to the WHO while ordering a review to assess its role in “severely mismanaging and covering up” the spread of deadly COVID-19 virus.

 

The US has been the major funding country for the WHO. The American taxpayers provide $400 to $500 million per year to the WHO and it had given $440 million in 2019 to it as against that of China which contributes a meager $40 million annually. The other countries that support the WHO financially are Japan ($180mn), Germany ($114mn), and the UK ($84mn).

 

Therefore, it is justified when President Trump expected that the WHO plays a major role in arresting the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus which according to him failed to do that. His allegations against the WHO, therefore, appears to hold true when he said “as the organization’s leading sponsor, the US has a duty to insist on full accountability, one of the most dangerous and costly decisions from the WHO was its disastrous decision to oppose travel restrictions from China and other nations”.

 

The US President also blamed the WHO for taking side with China in the coronavirus pandemic that has literally brought the US economy to a standstill. The world depends on WHO for accurate information about global health threats so that timely preventive actions could be taken by the respective countries. The WHO seems to have failed on this front, according to President Donald Trump’s assessment.

 

Stressing that the WHO must be held accountable for this basic failure, President Trump alleged that the WHO failed to probe credible repots from sources in Wuhan that conflicted directly with the Chinese government reports. The WHO did not accord importance to early reports of human-to-human transmission of COVID-19 in December 2019 in China and did not undertake proper study and research immediately.

 

The WHO took much time to declare the novel coronavirus pandemic as world health threat and as President Trump said “the inability of the WHO was visible in getting the team of international experts to examine the outbreak caused loss of time”. This delay on part of the WHO has deprived the scientific community of essential data and the new data that emerges across the world on a daily basis has further complicated and confused the situation about spread of the infection and death rate.

 

 

Accusing the WHO of supporting China, President Trump alleged that the silence of global health body on disappearance of scientific researchers and doctors and new restrictions on sharing research into origins of the virus in its country of origin is deeply concerning, especially when the US is the major sponsor and gives huge funds to them.

 

“Had the WHO done its job to get medical experts into China to objectively assess the situation on the ground and to call out China’s lack of transparency, the outbreak could have been contained...with very little death..., he said. Instead the WHO willingly took China’s assurances at face value...and defended the actions of the Chinese government, even praising China for its so-called transparency.... The WHO pushed China's misinformation about the virus, saying it was not communicable, and there was no need for travel bans.... The WHO’s reliance on China's disclosures likely caused a 20-fold increase in cases worldwide, and it may be much more than that, Trump said.

 

The President alleged that the WHO has not addressed a single one of these concerns nor provided a serious explanation that acknowledges its own mistakes, of which there were many. Since its establishment in 1948, the American people have generously supported the World Health Organization to provide better health outcomes for the world and, most importantly, to help prevent global health crises, he said. “With the outbreak of the COVID-19, we have deep concerns about whether America’s generosity has been put to the best use possible. The reality is that the WHO failed to adequately obtain, vet and share information in a timely and transparent fashion,” Trump added.