BackUnited we stand, divided we fall sick
The WHO has set up a panel to review its response to the covid pandemic. Perhaps reforms will follow. For the sake of the planet’s health, the institution must always be beyond reproach.
PremiumThe World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday said it had set up an independent panel to review its handling of the covid-19 pandemic and the response by governments. This committee will be jointly headed by former New Zealand PM Helen Clark and former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. The move comes soon after US President Donald Trump’s administration notified the United Nations of its decision to withdraw America from the international public health agency. Trump had accused the WHO of taking too long to warn the world of the outbreak, and also of aiding China—where this new coronavirus first surfaced—in what he saw as a cover-up. While the WHO denied these allegations, its director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus admitted that it was “time for self-reflection".
The WHO’s alleged dalliance with China has been a controversial issue for months. In May, as many as 62 countries, led by Australia and the EU, had demanded an investigation to ascertain how the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (Sars-CoV-2 that causes covid-19 leapt from animals to humans. They also wanted an “impartial" evaluation of the WHO’s response to the pandemic. With the US on its way out, the WHO has been under pressure to present its bona fides to the world afresh.
America may rejoin the body if Trump is defeated by his Democrat challenger Joe Biden in US polls later this year, as the latter has said it would, but the WHO still needs to regain some credibility lost over the course of this pandemic. The body is in need of internal reforms, but nobody should underestimate the vitality of its role at a time like this. All countries need to work together to fight covid-19, and a divided world will be that much likely to fall sick.
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