Trump To Withhold WHO Funding Over Pandemic Response

United States President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced the suspension of US funding to the World Health Organization because he said it had covered up the seriousness of the COVID-19 outbreak in China before it spread around the world.

Trump told a press conference he instructed his administration to halt funding while “a review is conducted to assess the World Health Organization’s role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus.”

According to Trump, the WHO was not transparent about the outbreak and the United States, which is the UN body’s biggest funder  will now “discuss what to do with all that money that goes to the WHO.”

“With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have deep concerns whether America’s generosity has been put to the best use possible.”

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Reacting to this move of the US President,The United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has said now is “not the time” to be cutting funding to the WHO, and the medical community has also criticised the move.

Dr Patrice Harris, president of the American Medical Association called it “a dangerous step in the wrong direction that will not make defeating COVID-19 easier.”

Dr Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease expert and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security said while reforms might be needed it as not the time.

“It’s not the middle of a pandemic that you do this type of thing,” he said.