US President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced that he had stopped funding the World Health Organization (WHO) accusing it of “covering up the spread of the coronavirus.”
“The WHO failed in its basic duty and it must be held accountable,” Trump said while addressing a daily briefing.
Trump also said that the WHO sided with China’s claims about the outbreak at face value instead of saving lives.
Trump had recently called the UN health agency too “China-centric”.
United States is the highest contributor of funds to the WHO at nearly 15 per cent.
Head of WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has been accused of not verifying China’s claims and not being critical of China’s cover-up. There is an online petition on change.org for the resignation of Tedros, who hails from Ethiopia and is the first African to head the WHO.
“Many countries said they were going to listen to the WHO and they have problems now the likes of which they cannot believe,” Trump said.
“The world received all sorts of false information about misinformation and mortality,” he added.
Trump said countries that believed WHO ended up “a 20-fold increase in cases worldwide and it may be much more than that” and “so much death has been caused by their mistakes.”
Recently, Japan’s Deputy Prime Minister had lashed out at WHO stating that it should be renamed as “Chinese Health Organization”.
Also Read: Rename WHO As Chinese Health Organization: Japan
