WHO agrees to coronavirus response probe after Trump’s threat

GENEVA: The head of the World Health Organisation has said he would keep leading the global fight against the coronavirus pandemic after US President Donald Trump threatened to cut funding and quit the global body.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus defended the agency’s role after the United States again withheld full support for a resolution passed by member states on the pandemic.

“We want accountability more than anyone,” Tedros told a virtual meeting of the WHO member states. “We will continue providing strategic leadership to coordinate the global response.”

The United States allowed the resolution calling for a review of the global response to the pandemic to pass by consensus without a vote.

The resolution called for a review of the WHO-led global response which has been demanded by the US who objected to reproductive health rights and permission for poor countries to waive patent rules.

China and the US also sparred in the closing moments of the assembly over the issue of Taiwan. The breakaway region has lobbied to be included as an observer at the two-day meeting and received support from the US, Japan and others but claimed it was not invited after pressure from China.

The WHO has received backing and a two-year pledge of $2bn in funds from Chinese President Xi Jinping. China has denied the US allegations that it played down the virus threat, and accused United States on Tuesday of trying to smear China.

“The US tries to use China as an issue to shirk responsibility and bargain over its international obligations to the WHO,” foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said.

Russia also denounced Trump’s threat. “We are against breaking everything there is for the sake of one state’s political or geopolitical preferences,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted as saying by a news agency.

Many other leaders expressed support for Tedros. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called for international cooperation in response to the pandemic.

The WHO declined to comment on Trump’s threat to quit and said it has only that it had received his letter and was considering its contents. The resolution calls for a review into how the novel coronavirus spread after making the jump from animals to humans in the Chinese city of Wuhan last year.