‘Now is not the time’: World Health Organisation hits back at Trump after he threatened to withdraw $513m in funding over the botched response to coronavirus pandemic
- President Trump criticized World Health Organization and threatened funding
- He branded the UN agency ‘China centric’, saying the WHO had ‘called it wrong’
- WHO has came under fire for slow response to coroanvirus as it began to spread
- Agency hit back saying that a pandemic ‘is not the time to cut back on funding’
- UN has also rejected WHO criticism and backed the director-general, Dr Tedros
The World Health Organization has hit back at President Trump after he threatened to cut US funding over its handling of the coronvirus crisis.
Trump has been locked in a battle of words with the WHO and tried to blame the UN agency for not warning the world sooner about the impending pandemic that originated in China.
The president has come under fire himself from Democrats and other world leaders for downplaying the danger the virus posed to the US at the same time as referring to it as the ‘China virus’.
Yesterday Trump savaged the WHO and branded it ‘China centric’, saying it ‘called it wrong’ and ‘missed the call’.
President Trump, joined by members of the Coronavirus Task Force, speaking at a briefing at the White House yesterday
He also said his administration would look into whether the US would withdraw it $513m funding from America.
At a daily press briefing on Tuesday, Trump accused the WHO of mishandling the coronavirus and said: ‘We’re going to put a hold on money spent to the WHO.’
When asked by reporters, the president quickly backtracked and said he was only looking into a possible suspension of funds to the WHO.
Today Dr Hans Kluge, the WHO’s regional director for Europe, said: ‘We are now in an acute phase of the pandemic – now is not the time to cut back on funding.’
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric rejected the criticism of the WHO and backed director-general, Dr Tedros, for his ‘tremendous work’.
‘For the Secretary General [Antonio Guterres] it is clear that WHO, under the leadership of Dr Tedros, has done tremendous work on COVID in supporting countries with millions of pieces of equipment being shipped out, on helping countries with training, on providing global guidelines. WHO is showing the strength of the international health system,’ he told reporters.
Dujarric added the WHO also recently did ‘tremendous work’ in putting its staff on the frontlines to successfully fight Ebola, an infectious and often fatal disease, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Earlier on Tuesday, Trump attacked the WHO on his social media for being ‘China centric’.
He wrote on Twitter: ‘The W.H.O. really blew it. For some reason, funded largely by the United States, yet very China centric. We will be giving that a good look.’