Coronavirus: The WHO is not perfect, but it needs everyone’s support

The body is only as strong as its member states, writes Sean O'Grady

Director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreysus was China’s nominee for the job (AFP/Getty)

A global public health crisis needs a global strategy, it has been said often in recent weeks, and for obvious reasons. That being so, the principal international agency concerned with such matters might be expected to play a central, leading role in the effort to contain the coronavirus. Yet the World Health Organisation has been ignored and derided in equal and considerable measure, just at the moment when it could be vindicated. Its central mission is as crucial as at any time in its 72-year history; yet it is floundering.

The most trenchant criticism has come from President Trump. In recent days he has threatened to cut America’s funding for the WHO (the US is the largest single donor), accused it of failing to learn about the pandemic early enough, and generally being too “China-centric”. Such criticisms from the right of politics throughout the west may be expected to intensify as the crisis continues to worsen.

Part of that is down to Trump’s usual habit of laying the blame for misfortunes and errors in America’s own response at the door of some foreign entity. The WHO, an agency of the United Nations, is a small but high profile and highly convenient scapegoat for the rising toll of deaths in the US. So, of course, is China as with the attempt to rename the coronavirus the “China virus“. The WHO have attacked the president for trying to “politicise” the pandemic.