the US has launched a scathing attack on
the World Health Organization at its
annual meeting of the member states the
US health secretary Alex's are said the
w-h-o had failed to obtain the
information that the world needed which
cost lives in the pandemic have a listen
to what he had to say in an apparent
attempt to conceal this outbreak at
least one member state made a mockery of
their transparency obligations with
tremendous cost for the entire world we
saw that whu-oh failed at its core
mission of information sharing and
transparency when member states do not
act in good faith
this cannot ever happen again the status
quo is intolerable whu-oh must change
and it must become far more transparent
and far more accountable
well the w-h-o hasn't responded to those
allegations and although the US health
secretary didn't name the country
explicitly previous comments do give us
a clue throughout the pandemic the US
has called on China where the outbreak
began to be more transparent it's a
message that we've heard again and again
where today President Xi Jingping had
this to say to critics we have acted
with openness transparency and a
responsibility we have provided
information to the devil show and
irrelevant countries in the most timely
fashion we have released the genome
sequence at the earliest possible time
we have shared control and treatment
experience with the world without
reservation we have done everything in
our power to support and Asus East
countries need well let's get more
analysis from our China correspondent
Steve McDonald he's saying China has
been completely transparent he said that
his country supplied the genome sequence
as soon as it possibly could to the rest
of the world but then went on and said
that China was going to pledge two
billion dollars in support for
developing countries trying to tackle
this emergency Chinese hospitals are
going to pair with 30 African countries
he's going to set up a sort of Global
Response base in China for emergencies
like this in the future
and also said that in you know pushing
again into the future that when the
emergency calms down there needs to be a
sort of good look at the global response
with its inefficiencies what went wrong
what went right with a view to
completely overhauling the way all
countries have handled this and the
message was that really we have to be
able to do better than this because
there could be more disease emergencies
like this coming in the near future well
all Member States us 194 of them of the
w-h-o met virtually as leaders push for
an independent review of the global
handling of the pandemic w-h-o chief dr.
Ted Rose was first to speak urging
countries to be open to scrutiny he made
this announcement I will initiate an
independent evaluation at the earliest
appropriate moment to review experience
gained and lessons learned and to make
recommendations to improve national and
global pandemic preparedness and
response well South Korea's president
moon jaein also weighed in he called for
the whu-oh to be given more legal powers
to ensure countries report outbreaks and
share data so Jay WH all we must update
the w-h-o international health
regulations and strengthen them with
binding legal force a new infectious
disease could emerge at any time and we
must be able to respond more quickly and
effectively infection related data
should be shared among countries in a
more transparent manner and an early
warning system and a cooperation
mechanism must be jointly established so
was there any message of unity during
this meeting well here's our growth
global health correspondent shouldn't
miss endure with more well certainly for
the first four hours or so as countries
came online and most of them were really
supportive of the whu-oh talked about
global solidarity at the time of this
pandemic and we do know that as you've
been hearing that there are calls
international calls led by the EU and
Australia for this independent inquiry
into the W
chose handling of the crisis but all of
this sort of goodwill kind of stopped
when it came to the US his turn and you
heard the US representative speaking
there they were very very critical of
the World Health Organization they
didn't name China as you mentioned
specifically but talked about a member
state that hasn't been completely
transparent so this is really the World
Health Organization stuck in the middle
of a bigger do political fight between
China and the US now the US isn't by far
the only country that has criticized
China for not being transparent enough
at the beginning and also has criticized
a w-h-o for being too praising of China
and also potentially declaring a
pandemic too late and not handling it as
well as it should have done but really
this has become this is sort of clouded
conversations today like I said most
other countries were very supportive of
the w-h-o but these this will be the
headline I think coming out of this
meeting and moving forward obviously now
there's going there's there has to be
some kind of cohesive action between the
Member States the willingness to be
transparent and share data when it comes
to virus infections and deaths is that
likely to happen so South Korea as you
heard there is calling for the WRA to be
given more teeth more powers to actually
get countries to give information making
short countries give information
remember the World Health Organization
is an advisory body only it can't
enforce its advice it can't force its
way into countries to do independent
investigations and that is what South
Korea and also Australia have been
pointing towards they're saying that
that wh OHS mandate needs to be widened
in order to do that there will be
discussion around whether that will be
included going forward for the World
Health Organization it's important to
say that w-h-o did actually get into
China in January and February of this
year but it was invited by China and it
was alongside Chinese officials what
other countries are saying now is that
the WHI should go completely
independently so it can find out the
source of outbreaks not just in China
for this outbreak although that is
what's needed more pressingly according
to a number of countries but also for
future outbreaks and I don't think China
is going to go for that
other countries will also have to agree
that if outbreaks happen in their
countries that they'll allow an
independent team in and I think that is
a sensitive issue so I don't think
anything's gonna move on that very
quickly but it could be that they do
make some sort of commitment to looking
into that when the pandemic is over
before the w-h-o meeting got underway
more than a hundred and forty world
leaders and experts submitted this open
letter calling for a people's vaccine
that is free and equally available to
all nations its main message is this
only a people's vaccine with equality in
solidarity at its core can predict
protect even all of humanity and get our
societies safely running again
a bold international agreement cannot
wait well one of the signatories to the
letter is professor Mariano Meza Kuto
from University College London let's
have a look there's basically three
demands in the letter the first is to
ensure a mandatory worldwide sharing of
all code the 19 related knowledge in
other words in an era where we talk
about big data and collective
intelligence this is the moment Talk
That Talk and that does have to do with
for example creating patent pools and
really making sure that any knowledge is
enforced in terms of the licensing
capability so it doesn't remain secret
the second is to establish a global and
equitable rapid manufacturing and
distribution plan so we can actually
make it for everybody around the world
and that really has to be funded fully
by rich nations and third we have to
guarantee that the vaccines the
diagnostics and the tests are provided
for free of charge to everyone
scientists around the world are working
a record speed to develop a vaccine for
Kovan 19 that most experts tell us that
it's unlikely one will be ready in the
next year however we have had a positive
development today we heard the first US
company to carry out human trials into a
Cove in nineteen vaccine has reported
positive results moderna is a biotech
firm based in Cambridge in Massachusetts
it says it's vaccine produced antibodies
that could neutralize corona virus
scientists say early results showed the
levels of antibodies were similar to
those in blood samples of people who had
covered from koban 19 the company says
the vaccine was generally safe and well
tolerated with a safety profile
consistent with that seen in Prior
moderna infectious disease vaccine
clinical studies for the BBC's health
and science correspondent James
Gallagher cautions this is only phase
one and the next stage of the trial
which begins in July will determine
whether people are protected against the
virus so there are still many challenges
ahead
here's moderna president Stephen dr.
Stephen Hoke
our goal is to have a vaccine available
for broad distribution by urine early
next year
now the question of course that's out
there is as we start to build data over
time and if we and other others build
data that shows that the vaccine has a
potential for benefit that it's safe and
has a potential for efficacy then of
course there are circumstances where the
vaccine could be deployed to high-risk
populations earlier under something
called an emergency use authorization
really though that's a that's a decision
that regulators in particularly fda have
to make