Cameron slams WHO over COVD-19, canvasses its replacement
26 June 2020 |
3:17 am
Former British Prime Minister, David Cameron, has called for the replacement of the World Health Organisation (WHO), citing the organisation’s alleged failure
Former British Prime Minister, David Cameron, has called for the replacement of the World Health Organisation (WHO), citing the organisation’s alleged failure to give swift coronavirus reports.
He called for the United Nations (UN) agency’s current role to be given to a new body, saying it had been too concerned about upsetting China in the early stage of the crisis, and too slow to warn the rest of the world.
“The World Health Organisation should be stripped of its responsibilities to warn about future pandemics after its failures over coronavirus,” the ex-premier said.
Cameroun suggested the creation of a new Global Virus Surveillance Organisation, urging the G20 to discuss it when it meets in Saudi Arabia in November.
“The current system fails in two ways. The WHO relies on countries telling it about emerging viruses. Then the world relies on the WHO telling everyone else.
“But countries are often reluctant to share for reasons of politics, pride and capacity. And the WHO seems slow to react, mostly for the same reasons,” he wrote in an article in The Times.
Acknowledging that the health body made some important interventions on COVID-19, the Briton scored low overall in responses.
“I believe we can either try to fix the whole system, including the WHO, from start to finish (which, given the size of such a task and the politics involved, would almost certainly fail). Or we can try to fix the first and most vital part: scanning the world for viruses, and making sure that information is shared rapidly,” he asserted.
China is believed to have been the ground zero for the coronavirus outbreak. But it has been dogged by allegations that it emerged much earlier than Beijing has claimed, and authorities did not raise the alarm.
The Asian nation appears to have tamed a new occurrence in its capital, once again demonstrating health officials’ ability to quickly mobilise vast resources by testing nearly 2.5 million people in 11 days.
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