WASHINGTON/SYDNEY (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday halted funding to the World Health Organization over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, triggering criticism from other countries and medical experts as the international death toll mounted.
Trump, who has actually responded angrily to attacks on his administration’s action to the worst epidemic in a century, has become increasingly hostile towards the WHO.
The Geneva-based organisation had actually promoted China’s “disinformation” about the virus that likely led to a wider break out than otherwise would have happened, Trump said.
WHO had stopped working to examine reliable reports from sources in China’s Wuhan province, where the virus was first determined, that conflicted with Beijing’s accounts about the spread and “parroted and openly endorsed” the concept that human to human transmission was not taking place, Trump said.
” The WHO stopped working in this standard task and needs to be held liable,” Trump told a White Home press conference on Tuesday.
There was no immediate reaction from the WHO.
Nearly 2 million people internationally have actually been contaminated and more than 124,000 have died considering that the disease emerged in China late last year, according to a Reuters tally.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated it was not the time to lower resources for the WHO.
GRAPHIC: Tracking the novel coronavirus in the U.S. – here
” Now is the time for unity and for the global neighborhood to collaborate in solidarity to stop this virus and its shattering effects,” he stated in a declaration.
The United States is the greatest total donor to the WHO, contributing more than $400 million in 2019, approximately 15%of its spending plan