This ridiculous idea was cancelled after a storm of protest. Human rights groups noted that Mugabe, an ally of China, was head of the African Union when it helped manoeuvre Tedros into the post. The Washington Post also pointed out that China “worked tirelessly behind the scenes” to help his cause, saying his success would be “a victory for Beijing” and for Xi’s desire to demonstrate his nation’s growing strength.
Does this explain why WHO echoed China’s opposition to travel restrictions in the early days of this crisis and now promotes the flawed idea that this nation is a role model for fighting the virus?
It gets worse. WHO was told about the disease on the last day of 2019. There are allegations China already knew about human-to-human transmission even as it was detaining doctors who were trying to protect the public over following days. Yet on January 14 WHO’s twitter account claimed that “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China.” Just three days later, one of its officials publicly intimated the new virus was being transmitted among humans, a critical revelation that highlighted the epidemic’s dangers — then this was confirmed by China after another three days.
Taipei officials said in late December they tipped off WHO — through a warning system designed for exchange of such facts — that medical staff in China were becoming ill: a clear indication of human-to-human transmission. But this critical information was not shared, since Taiwan was excluded from a key WHO platform; indeed, the body did not even bother to reply. “An opportunity to raise the alert level both in China and the wider world was lost,” Chen Chien-jen, Taiwan’s vice-president and an epidemiologist, told The Financial Times.
It took until the end of January before Tedros finally proclaimed coronavirus to be a public health emergency of international concern — by which time it had spread to 19 nations on four continents. Some experts defend his pragmatic need to work with China to contain the outbreak, despite scepticism over data. And despite WHO’s sluggishness to declare a pandemic, the body has been hailed for subsequent work to marshall global efforts to contain the virus. Yet when this crisis is concluded, there needs to be accountability for actions that have again damaged its credibility.
WHO was guilty of disastrous inaction over the deadly ebola outbreak six years ago, when its slack approach was accused of fuelling death and suffering. The terrible epidemic killed more than 11,000 people in three west African nations, provoking fear and paralysing these countries, as I saw for myself in Liberia.
Yet when Médecins Sans Frontières begged the world for help and warned the disease was out of control, it was rebuked by a WHO spokesman on social media. Only after four more months did this body, which is supposed to show global leadership, concede that there was an international health emergency. A devastating inquiry by British and US experts accused it of “the most egregious failure” for failing to sound the alarm.
Reach back further in time and there are other examples of this body’s flaws, not least the inept way it coped with the Aids crisis that led the UN to set up a separate body for the disease. Possibly it was restrained in this new crisis by fear of seeming alarmist, having been criticised for calling the 2009 swine flu outbreak a pandemic when it turned out milder than expected. This could explain why, at the end of last month Tedros, still downplayed the disease. “Using the word pandemic carelessly has no tangible benefit, but it does have significant risk in terms of amplifying unnecessary and unjustified fear and stigma, and paralysing systems,” he said.
Like other UN bodies, this organisation has a tough job balancing a big leadership role with systemic flaws and competing national interests. Set up in 1948 to help the world attain “highest possible level of health”, its strategic scope ranges from curbing smoking and tackling child obesity through to antibiotic resistance and preparing for emergencies. Unfortunately, again like some other UN bodies, it is bloated, bureaucratic, struggles for funds, suffers from organisational dysfunction and is stuffed with political stooges.
When we emerge from this dark cloud, the world may look very different. Yet one thing is certain: this cruel pandemic has exposed with the most terrible clarity that we need a global health body free of politics, unfettered by diplomatic restraints and fearless about telling the truth.
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