- WHO chief says he will keep leading virus response after Trump threat (reuters.com)
The World Health Organization’s head said on Tuesday he would keep leading the global fight against the coronavirus pandemic, after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to cut off funding and quit the body...WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus defended the agency’s role after the United States again withheld full support for a resolution on the pandemic...Washington allowed the resolution calling for a review into the global response to the pandemic to pass by consensus, but said it objected to language about reproductive health rights and permission for poor countries to waive patent rules...WHO officials running the meeting clapped and cheered after the resolution was passed without a vote hours after Trump tweeted his threat to pull the United States out of the body...It calls for a review into the WHO-led global response, something the United States has demanded...READ MORE
- World Health Organization calls coronavirus outbreak ‘pandemic’ for first time (reuters.com)UN releases US$15 million to help vulnerable countries battle the spread of the coronavirus (who.int)
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization
The World Health Organization described the new coronavirus as a pandemic for the first time on Wednesday, adding that Italy and Iran were now on the frontline of the disease and other countries would soon join them...“We are deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity and by the alarming levels of inaction. We have therefore made the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference on Wednesday...READ MORE