The US on Thursday accused the WHO of putting politics first by ignoring early warnings about the novel coronavirus by Taiwan, which voiced outrage over criticism from the UN body’s chief.
US President Donald Trump has gone on an offensive with threats to withhold funding for the WHO, which is at the forefront of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic that late last year emerged in Wuhan, China.
Critics have said that Trump’s sudden threats against the WHO amount to a political ploy to find a foreign scapegoat as he comes under fire for not doing more to prepare for and control the disease.
Photo: Reuters
Trump in January said that the US had the novel coronavirus “totally under control” and predicted that it might go away this month as temperatures rise.
Elaborating on Trump’s case against the WHO, the US Department of State said that the WHO was too late in sounding the alarm over COVID-19 and overly deferential to China.
It questioned why the Geneva, Switzerland-based body did not pursue a lead from Taiwan.
The US is “deeply disturbed that Taiwan’s information was withheld from the global health community, as reflected in the WHO’s January 14, 2020, statement that there was no indication of human-to-human transmission,” a department spokeswoman said.
“The WHO once again chose politics over public health,” she said, slamming the WHO for denying Taiwan even observer status since 2016.
The WHO’s actions have “cost time and lives,” she said.
Taiwan on Dec. 31 last year told the WHO of human-to-human transmission, Vice President Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) has said.
Chen, an epidemiologist, told the Financial Times that Taiwanese doctors had learned that colleagues in Wuhan were falling ill, but that the WHO did not work to confirm the finding.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in an appeal for unity, on Wednesday said that he had been subjected to insults including racial slights since the public health crisis began.
The doctor-turned-diplomat did not mention the US — the largest donor to the WHO at more than US$400 million last year — but singled out non-member Taiwan.
The comments sparked anger in Taiwan, which described Tedros’ comments as “baseless” and said that it was seeking an apology for “slander.”
“Our country has never encouraged the public to launch personal attacks against him or made any racially discriminatory comments,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Joanne Ou (歐江安) told reporters on Thursday.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) on Facebook invited Tedros to visit Taiwan and learn from its handling of the epidemic, challenging him to “resist pressure from China.”
Beijing said that Tsai’s Democratic Progressive Party has engaged in “political manipulation” over the WHO.
“Its true aim is to seek independence through the pandemic. We are firmly opposed to this, and their scheme will never succeed,” a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman said in Beijing.
Critics of Tedros have accused the WHO under his leadership of being too close to Beijing and complimentary of China’s response to the coronavirus.
However, some public health experts have said that the WHO had little choice but to cooperate with China to preserve access to Wuhan.
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