WHO needs to own up for coronavirus coverup

World Health Organisation (WHO), a wing of the United Nations Organisation (UN), was established with the specific mandate of monitoring the health conditions of the world community, providing approvals for several laboratories/testing agencies across the world relating to medical procedures, and appraising the world as and when necessary about any development that would impact the health conditions.

WHO is an organisation well funded by several countries, with the top funders being the USA and China. WHO has several offices in a number of countries with facilities and team to monitor the regional conditions and certainly, the organisation does not lack adequate facilities or funds to carry out it’s mandated tasks.

On several occasions, WHO has monitored the conditions in individual regions with the permission of the governments, if warranted by any local developments relating to health issues or disease occurrence.

Widespread criticism :

At present, WHO is facing widespread criticism with regard to its rolein handling the global COVID-19 crisis.

While US President Donald Trump has led the criticism, the fact is that several countries, except China and Russia, broadly agree with the views of President Trump, though some of the countries may be remaining silent for their own reasons.

Many people across the world are of the view that WHO has failed in its duty to warn the world at the right time about the impending disaster due to COVID 19, when it occurred in China in November 2019.

In the absence of warning from WHO, many countries thought that COVID 19 would be confined to China and there will be little impact on the rest of the world.

Caught in controversy :

President Trump has said that Director-General of WHO,Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has favoured China by not highlighting the seriousness of COVID 19 at the right time, when it originated in Wuhan, to protect the reputation of China. A few other countries including Taiwan have echoed the view.

In November 2019, when COVID19 occurred in China, there were a lot of reports in the world media about the happening in Wuhan. China, however, conspicuously remained silent and did not share the information with the rest of the world. China deliberately concealed the information and did not permit any overseas visitors to Wuhan and even expelled some of the foreign correspondents.

When the world was aware of the Wuhan virus crisis, it is shocking that WHO did not insist that its team should visit Wuhan area, see the conditions and take a stand about the serious nature of the crisis.

It is also asked by several people that while WHO did not care to visit Wuhan site in November/December 2019, would the organisation have reacted in the same way if COVID-19 or similar type of health crisis hadhappened in any other country like India, Sri Lanka or Kenya?

Rejoinders not based on facts and figures :

What is even more shocking is that as the world is now suffering due to COVID 19 and criticisms are made against WHO, its Director-General is sending rejoinders refuting the criticisms to the President of the USA, who is the major contributor of funds to WHOand have the right to ask questions about its level of efficiency.

Instead of explaining in a constructive way by sending the team from WHO to the USA and other criticising countries to explain as to what it has done and what it has not done, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is accusing US President of politicising this issue and alleging of racial discrimination by the Taiwanese government.

This has brought down the level of global discussions on COVID 19 to abysmally low level. The present Director-General of WHO is trying to twist the issues without straightaway answering the criticisms backed by facts and figures.

Stand of Secretary-General of the UN:

Even the Secretary-General of UN, António Guterres, has simply supported the WHO and it appears that he has not cared to investigate the matter and the criticisms levelled against WHO with any level of seriousness, particularly in a situation where thousands of human lives have been lost due to COVID 19 crisis and more people are dying every day.

While WHO is primarily responsible for the present depressing world scenario, which appears to be due to the inefficiency and failure of WHO to forewarn the world at the right time, one wonders as to what is the responsibility of António Guterres and why he has failed to monitor and supervise the performance of WHO.

The statement of UN Secretary-General asking all the countries to stay together in fighting the COVID 19 crisis, is likely to be viewed with scepticism in the present scenario. This paper statement does not have much value in the present situation when WHO /UNremain unrepentant about its shortcomings.

Revamp WHO :

The revamping of WHO is a matter of absolute necessity now, to ensure that the future of health conditions of the world community would be adequately and efficiently monitored.

It is clearly evident that there is increasing feeling amongst many sections of a world community that the present leadership of WHOshould pay the price for its failure and the top office-bearers in WHO should quit immediately owning responsibility for the failure so that WHOcan be revamped, which has become a matter of absolute necessity now.

(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed above are the personal views of the author and do not reflect the views of ZMCL)