World reacts to Trump’s decision to halt WHO funding

US President Donald Trump has decided to temporarily stop funding to the World Health Organization over its management of coronavirus pandemic. Soon after the decision, Trump and his administration are being criticized.

UN General-Secretary Antonio Guterres

UN General-Secretary has said that this is “not the time” to halt the funding for WHO.
He said, “Now is the time for unity and the international community to work together in solidarity to stop this virus and its shattering consequences,”

Johns Hopkins Center for Health Secretary

Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease expert, and senior scholar has shared his opinion about funding, “The move sends the wrong message during the middle of a pandemic”

He justified that the WHO has delayed the response to the Ebola virus in 2013 and 2014. He also said that reforms would be held after this pandemic has passed.

“It’s not the middle of a pandemic that you do this type of thing,”

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Arden

Jacinda Arden also shared her opinion, “At a time like this when we need to be sharing information and we need to have advice we can rely on, the WHO has provided that. We will continue to support it and continue to make our contributions,”

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison

Morrison said that he agrees to Trump’s criticisms over its support of reopening “wet markets” in China and over other matters. However, he said, “But that said, the WHO also as an organization does a lot of important work including here in our region in the Pacific and we work closely with them,”

“We are not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater here, but they are also not immune from criticism and immune from doing things better.”

American Medical Association

AMA President Patrice Harris asked Trump to rethink. He said that it is “a dangerous step in the wrong direction that will not make defeating COVID-19 easier”.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert, has said, “This virus doesn’t need passports. In a few short months, it has traveled to all of the continents of the world except Antarctica. If there were ever an event that showed us how we need to work tougher as a global community, this is it,”

Chairman, US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee

“With each passing day of this worsening crisis, the president is showing us his political playbook: Blame the WHO, blame China, blame his political opponents, blame his predecessors – do whatever it takes to deflect from the fact that his administration mismanaged this crisis and it’s now costing thousands of American lives,” Democratic representative Eliot Engel.