Chiefs of WHO, UN hit back at Trump's threat
"Please quarantine politicizing COVID. If you want to win, we shouldn't spend your time pointing fingers...Unity may be the only choice to defeat this virus," World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday.
"I will suggest a couple of things to the world," he told a virtual press conference from Geneva when answering a question about U.S. President Donald Trump's threat to withhold funds for the UN agency. "The foremost is national unity, and the second is global solidarity."
Trump on Tuesday criticized the WHO's response to COVID-19 and threatened to freeze U.S. funding for this.
Tedros stressed that at the national level, leaders should work across party lines.
"My message to political parties: do not politicize this virus. If you look after your people, work across party lines and ideologies ... Without unity, we assure you, even any country that may have a much better system will be in trouble, and more crises," Tedros noted.
"You don't need to use COVID to score political points. You have a great many other ways to prove yourselves. This is not the one to use for politics, it's like using fire," Tedros added.
"Now, america and China, all the rest of G20 and the rest of the world should come together to fight the virus," he said, adding that the virus succeeds whenever there are cracks at the national level and global level.
Early in the day, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres needed supporting the WHO during the COVID-19 crisis when confronted with Trump's threat.
The WHO, with a large number of its staff, is on the frontlines, supporting member states and their societies, especially the most vulnerable among them, Guterres said in a statement. "It really is my belief that the WHO must be supported, as it is absolutely critical to the world's efforts to win the war against COVID-19."
This is the time for unity, for the international community to interact in solidarity to avoid this virus and its shattering consequences, instead of for evaluating the performance of all involved, he said.
The situation on the floor seems to support Guterres' appeal for support for the WHO.
The quantity of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Africa has increased to a lot more than 10,000 with an increase of than 500 recorded deaths, as infections on the continent have grown exponentially in recent weeks and are continuing to spread, based on the WHO.
Africa's first COVID-19 case was recorded in Egypt on Feb. 14 and since that time the number of African countries reporting cases has risen to 52 out of a complete of 54.
The WHO said communities need to be empowered, and provincial and district degrees of government must ensure they have the resources and expertise to respond to the outbreaks locally.
The UN agency is working with governments across Africa to scale up their capacities in critical response areas such as coordination, surveillance, isolation, case management and contact tracing, infection prevention and control, risk communication and community engagement.
For instance, the US is supporting the Nigerian government in efforts to curb the spread of the virus. Three ambulances were donated Wednesday to the populous Lagos State. Other essential preventive, testing and treatment equipment procured by the United Nations is expected to get to the country in the coming days, said Stephane Dujarric, chief spokesman for the secretary-general.
In Venezuela, the first shipment of 90 tons of UN life-saving supplies, including 28,000 personal protective equipment kits for health personnel on the frontline together with oxygen concentrators, pediatric beds, water quality control products and hygiene kits, was scheduled to reach on Wednesday to support the COVID-19 response, said Peter Grohmann, the UN Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator for the united states.
In a televised speech on Monday, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez also expressed support to the WHO, saying that the UN-body sent out warnings at an early on stage of the COVID-19 outbreak and made specific plans to support the virus.
Washington should not pass the blame to the WTO because of its own failure in managing the COVID-19 situation, she added.
The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Spain in addition has delivered the first batch of medical supplies to health authorities to aid the fight the pandemic, Dujarric said.
UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said Tuesday COVID-19 is producing an unprecedented global financial crisis, with the economic destruction cruelly and unequally distributed.
For the world's poorest countries, the financial fallout caused by the pandemic, combined with debilitating debt-service obligations, is hampering their capability to prevent further transmission and protect citizens, she said.
A written report of the International Labour Organization said the pandemic is expected to get rid of 6.7 percent of working hours globally in the next quarter of 2020, equal to 195 million full-time workers.
