{"id":274947,"date":"2020-11-11T03:52:17","date_gmt":"2020-11-11T08:52:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=274947"},"modified":"2020-11-11T03:55:03","modified_gmt":"2020-11-11T08:55:03","slug":"who-probe-into-virus-origins-not-transparent-says-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/11\/11\/who-probe-into-virus-origins-not-transparent-says-us\/","title":{"rendered":"WHO probe into virus origins not transparent, says US"},"content":{"rendered":"
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FILE: WHO Headquarters in North (Photo by Thorkild Tylleskar\/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

GENEVA<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 The US on Tuesday continued to assail the World Health Organization\u2019s (WHO) pandemic response, saying that the team formed to probe the origins of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) was not set up in a \u201ctransparent\u201d manner and the investigation was not in line \u201cwith the mandate agreed by member states.\u201d<\/p>\n

The latest criticism came from Garrett Grigsby, director of the US Department of Health and Human Services\u2019 global affairs department, in a video address to the annual World Health Assembly (WHA), a ministerial meeting of the 194 WHO member countries.<\/p>\n

Grigsby said WHO member states were made aware of the terms of reference (TORs) for the investigation just a few days ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe terms of reference were not negotiated in a transparent way with all WHO member states. The TORs and the investigation itself appear to be inconsistent with the mandate provided by member states,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

US President Donald Trump has been at odds with the global health agency, announcing in May that the US was ending its relationship with the WHO.<\/p>\n

Trump said he was taking action against the WHO \u201cbecause they have failed to make the requested and greatly needed reforms.\u201d<\/p>\n

He had earlier paused Washington\u2019s funding over concerns that the global health body has mishandled the coronavirus outbreak.<\/p>\n

Trump has continued to insist that China has \u201ctotal control\u201d over the WHO, claiming that \u201cChinese officials ignored their reporting obligations\u201d to the health body during the pandemic, and \u201cpressured\u201d it to \u201cmislead the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grigsby said several WHO members had put forward proposals that include \u201cincreased transparency, accountability, greater global coordination, and improved communications.\u201d<\/p>\n

“There is overwhelming agreement that WHO and IHR (International Health Regulation) State Parties must improve preparedness and response in key ways,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Grigsby said the WHO is not taking advantage of all information available on combating the novel coronavirus.<\/p>\n

\u201cTaiwan is a shining success in how to fight Covid-19, so understanding its response would be highly beneficial as many member states struggle with another wave of cases,\u201d he said. \u201cBlocking Taiwan from participating in WHA as an observer, therefore, is counterproductive.\u201d<\/p>\n

A bid by the US and some other WHO members to have Taiwan invited as an observer to the WHA failed on Monday as it did not get sufficient support from members.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must share information and strengthen our own domestic capacities so that together, we have a transparent and connected global architecture to detect threats early, prevent further spread, and support each member state to protect its people,\u201d Grigsby said.<\/p>\n

As of November 10, short of 51 million have confirmed Covid-19 cases around the world, including more than 1.26 million deaths and more than 33.28 million recoveries, according to figures compiled by the Johns Hopkins University in the US.\u00a0(Anadolu)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GENEVA\u00a0\u2013 The US on Tuesday continued to assail the World Health Organization\u2019s (WHO) pandemic response, saying that the team formed …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":243650,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-274947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-anadolu","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274947"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":274948,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274947\/revisions\/274948"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}