the head of the World Health
Organization has defended its handling
of the corona virus pandemic the w-h-o
has been sharply criticized by the
United States and will be the subject of
an independent inquiry his w-h-o chief
dr. Ted Rose I thanked member states for
adopting the resolution which calls for
an independent and comprehensive
evaluation of the international response
including but not limited to doublet
shows performance as I said yesterday I
will initiate such an evaluation at the
earliest appropriate well the US has
been a harsh critic of the w-h-o in the
past 24 hours president Trump has
escalated his attack on the world health
body threatening to permanently cut off
funding over its response to the
pandemic he tweeted this letter accusing
the w-h-o of failing to share
information and being too soft on China
where the virus originated and he gave
the w-h-o a deadline of 30 days to
reform when the past hour Donald Trump
has repeated that ultimate and have a
listen to this letter is a very detailed
long letter but basically they have to
clean up their act
they have to do a better job they have
to be much more fair to other countries
including the United States so we're not
going to be involved with them anymore
we'll do it a separate way okay well the
w-h-o has responded saying is
considering the contents of the letter
China though had much stronger words for
the president this is what they had to
say maybe what the US tries to use China
as an issue to shirk responsibility and
bargain over its international
obligations to the w-h-o this is a
miscalculation and the US has picked the
wrong target Donald Trump's four-page
letter laid out the plans and the
results of his recent probe the
administration carried out in to the
World Health Organization's response to
the pandemic we've heard some of the
allegations from the president before
there is one that's a regular theme the
w-h-o he said failed to adequately
obtain vet
share information in a timely and
transparent fashion while unpacking that
for is is Chris Morris from the BBC's
reality check this is talking about the
early phase of the outbreak really now
what the w-h-o says it was informed by
China of a pneumonia of unknown cause in
the 31st of December last year within a
few days it put out an official
statement asking for more information
from China and by the 20th and 21st of
January it sent a team to Wuhan to
investigate by the end of the month it
declared a global public health
emergency now you can argue that perhaps
it could have acted quicker but you can
certainly make their arguments against
many governments around the world around
the world as well including that of the
United States and I think the key point
in this the crucial point is that the
w-h-o doesn't have the power to force or
compel any government to do anything
including handing over information and
it seems like in the absence of that
power it decided rightly or wrongly that
by praising China publicly that would be
the best way to get what is obviously is
still a secretive society to cooperate
well last month Donald Trump suspended
payments to the w-h-o for 60 days his
critics were quick to call it a
distraction from his own handling of the
pandemic whatever the motive it came as
a big blow to the w-h-o the u.s. is the
largest single donor pledging eight
hundred and ninety three million dollars
to its budget and according to The
Washington Post about four hundred
million dollars of that money was halted
when payments were suspended back in
April while the paper reports on the
same month China committed an extra
thirty million dollars to the w-h-o so
is there any reason to doubt the
independence of the world health body
here's Chris again but obviously the
u.s. is one of the largest funders of
the w-h-o but it provides 15 percent so
it's another majority of the money
there's also substantial contributions
from the UK from Germany and from a
private organization that the Gates
Foundation which obviously has quite a
lot of money to push around is the w-h-o
Pro Chinese certainly China is very
active in the organization and the w-h-o
is aware
of that and sensitive to it perhaps its
critics would certainly say
oversensitive it's it's it finds it
difficult dealing with Taiwan Taiwan is
not a member of the weh o because chat
it because it's not a member of the
United Nations and so that's a subject I
think a focus of criticism of the WH o
as well but some of the things that
Donald Trump said in his recent letter
to the letter yesterday to the WH o
certainly aren't correct for example
there's a tweet we've seen today from
the editor of The Lancet Richard Horton
saying dear President Trump you cite The
Lancet in your attack on the wh o please
let me correct the record The Lancet did
not publish any report in early December
2019 about a virus spreading in Wuhan
which is what the Trump letter says the
first report we published were from
Chinese scientists on the 24th of
January I think when you talk to all
experts the overwhelming majority of
scientists say by all means criticize
the whu-oh I mean that there they are
they certainly not shouldn't be avoiding
criticism but the idea of cutting off
funding for the only truly global public
health body we have in the middle of a
global pandemic any expert will tell you
that's dangerous well all of this comes
as members of the w-h-o agree to adopt a
resolution by the EU and Australia for
an investigation into the crisis so what
shape and form will that inquiry take
here's our global health correspondent
Chile's endure so this was a resolution
that as you say was tabled by the EU and
Australia it has been accepted by all of
the Member States at least that was the
consensus at this meeting over the last
couple of days at the World Health
Assembly we'll see in the next few days
whether certain countries might opt out
of certain parts of it but essentially
it's going to investigate how this
pandemic started how it was able to
spiral out of control so quickly one of
the key questions will be what was the
animal source of this virus we
understand that it came from a fish
market an animal market in Wuhan we
don't know what the animal sources said
that is something that will be looked
into as well and it was very carefully
worded these resolutions have to be
agreed by consensus
194 member states and it didn't specify
investigating any particular country it
did specify investigating the World
Health Organization but it also said
that it will also look at the
international response oh we'll look at
different countries response them sort
sure China will come up in that as well
yeah well you know I've been talking
about scrutiny and which countries
they'll be leveled at we were talking to
having that conversation yesterday
weren't we are I mean I'm wondering how
much scrutiny those countries will be
open to in particular China when they
move forward with this I think it
probably does although again China
wasn't specifically mentioned in this
resolution but if you are looking at how
this pandemic started what happened in
those early days and there has been
criticism not just from the World Health
Organisation the u.s. I should say
towards the World Health Organization
but Australia in other countries as well
saying they were too close to China that
China wasn't transparent at the
beginning and yet the w-h-o did continue
to praise it I think there will be some
investigation into that as well and
certainly the US will be lobbying behind
the scenes very hard for that to be part
of this investigation but broadly
speaking all the countries that were
speaking of the World Health Assembly
over the last couple of days have talked
about the importance of solidarity it's
been said again and again that one
country alone cannot beat this countries
have to come together and work together
to beat this otherwise it's simply not
going to go away so that is something
that will be reinforced I think as part
of this investigation that you know
blaming pointing fingers
it doesn't actually help the pandemic
now but clearly what needs to happen is
look at how this pandemic was dealt with
at the beginning to make sure that
lessons can be learned so it doesn't
happen again
when a virus like this does hit again
which it inevitably will Chilam has
ended there now let's move on to another
big story that's been developing out of
the United States last night Donald
Trump shocked health experts when he
said he'd been taking an unproven drug
hydroxychloroquine to protect himself
against coronavirus even though
officials warned it may be unsafe and
cause harmful side effects well despite
the dangers the president has again been
defending his use of the drug if you
look at some of the repo
once it came out from Italy they came
out from France they came out for a
mother a lot of our frontline workers
take it because it possibly and I think
it does but you know people are gonna
have to make up their own mind plus it
doesn't hurt people it's been out on the
market for 60 or 65 years for malaria
lupus and other things I think it gives
you an additional level of safety but
you can ask many doctors are in favor of
it
many frontline workers won't go there
unless they have the hydroxy and so
again this is an individual decision to
make but it's had a great reputation and
if it was somebody else other than me
people would say gee isn't that smart Oh
president Trump revealed he was taking
the anti malaria drug as he was hosting
a business event on Monday with more his
kETK in Washington yesterday the stock
market the Dow Jones Industrial rose 900
points and the event at which he was
speaking was meant to be an event
celebrating the reopening of the
American economy and talking about the
economic good news and then the
president in the middle of that event
revealed with some delight saying he was
kind of couldn't wait to see the look in
the reporters eyes that he had been
taking hydroxychloroquine for a week and
a half and of course that knew all of
the other news about the economy out of
the water and the only thing that people
talked about then for the rest of the
evening on cable television on the
television news networks here with a
front page was the fact that the
president is taking hydroxychloroquine
so if it was meant to be a sort of
deliberate strategy to distract from
things like the fact that America now
has 90,000 deaths
it was also distracting from what was
meant to be a moment of good news about
the American economy says it's kind of
hard to determine whether there was a
deliberate political strategy
surrounding this and it's also hard to
determine when the president says as he
just did just now he just played that
clip you know many doctors are taking it
many frontline workers have taken it
many people have told him this president
Summers has a tendency to say many
people have told me or many people are
doing this without actually naming
specifics and most of the doctors in
fact all of the doctors that I have
heard across television here in the
United States today have said that this
is a bad idea and not a good idea
certainly not one that they would
recommend to their patients