Coronavirus has claimed more than 89,000 lives and infected hundreds of thousands of people around the globe. What started as a simple pneumonia-like disease has now turned into a menace which still does not seem to cease.
It all started in late 2019 when a Chinese national was infected with a virus from an animal in the Huanan Seafood Market, in China’s Hubei Province. This virus originated in Wuhan City (Capital of the Hubei Province) and has now become a global pandemic claiming the lives of thousands of people.
This virus has become more powerful than ever and humanity has fallen prey to it. A large cloud of uncertainty now glooms over the world economy and the health resources of the world are under enormous pressure. The world leaders are perplexed and are yet trying to figure out the best way to contain the spread of this deadly contagion. The horror of this current situation is worsened with the media publicizing the touching images of patients and on the other hand, we have the do-not-resuscitate order being considered by the physicians in the States. It would not be wrong to blame the World Health Organization and its inefficient leadership for putting mankind at potential risk of this ghastly pandemic.
It is interesting to know that the current Director-General of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, is the first person in the history of the WHO’s leadership, to have held this coveted position despite not having a basic medical degree. He was well admired during his tenure as the Minister of Health of Ethiopia from 2005 to 2012. There was, indeed, a modest reduction in the mortality rate of infants in the country and he spearheaded the global fight against HIV, Malaria and Tuberculosis. It is often forgotten that he was a political figure who also served as Ethiopia’s Foreign Minister for four years before being elected to head the WHO in 2017 and not to mention the various scandals he was accused to be a part of.
Tedros’s management of the coronavirus pandemic has been rather dismal. He appreciated the efforts of the Ruling Party of China (Chinese Communist Party) in handling the entire situation. This was at a time when doctors were being detained in prisons for warning others about the epidemic while the people were being pushed into quarantine camps through tyrannical ways. He critically delayed the declaration of COVID-19 a pandemic and did so only after a whopping 116 countries were affected by this virus. On top of this, he called the travel restrictions put in place by China, a very discriminatory measure and voiced his opposition against it.
Despite being considered as a pioneer in the field of global health and medicine, it was CNN that declared COVID-19 a pandemic and WHO followed suit two days later. An organization that people should look up to by warning world governments of the potential dangers of this virus, underestimated the impact. The WHO was occupied in fighting over the semantics of its definitions rather than putting a plan into action.
Earlier this week, Donald Trump indicated that they may put a “very powerful hold” on funding to the WHO. He lashed out at the UN specialized agency for “being very China-centric” amid the coronavirus outbreak. He indicated that the WHO has been wrong in more ways than one. Trump strongly criticized the WHO for opposing the travel restrictions from China. He does intend to put a hold on the money that they send to the WHO. It is quite ironic that the WHO praised China for its transparency on the virus while the country has been strongly accused to have hid the official death count in the nation because of the virus. The funding of the US has been crucial for the WHO primarily because it is the single largest contributor to the organization’s 4.8 billion dollars annual budget.
In situations such as these, it is very important to hold organizations like the WHO accountable, question its integrity and demand reforms when they fail to act. It is imperative in times of pandemics that such organizations act without any bias and with a single aim of ensuring the safety of global citizens. One should also hope that the next Director-General of the WHO also has enough qualifications to hold the prestigious position and the body overall is proactive in terms of taking action.