17 April 2020, NIICE Commentary 4123
Dr Mohammad Tarikul Islam
Countries all over the world are struggling hard to manage COVID- 19, an emerging global crisis. COVID-19 is an infectious disease which is more severe than any form of natural disasters. It does not discriminate between class, national boundaries, nationalities, ethnicities or ideologies. The World Health Organization (WHO) is struggling harder with its expanded action than ever for tackling this global epidemic. Its technical expertise, guidance and leadership are dedicated to supplement the national efforts of member countries across the world to implement optimum science-based strategies to prevent and control COVID-19, and will catalyze global action against future health emergencies.
All of a sudden, US President Donald Trump has blamed the WHO for what he called its failures in the crisis and said he plans to halt American funding of the organization. The announcement came as Trump continued to be angered by criticism of his response to the pandemic, which has been assailed as too slow and ineffective, failing to quickly embrace public health measures that could have contained the virus. The WHO has called for global unity in fighting the COVID-19, following the US President Donald Trump’s stinging criticism and threat to withdraw funding over its handling of the pandemic. Director General of WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, was accused being too close to China. Experts fear that the work of the WHO in fighting disease and improving health and healthcare systems around the world could be endangered.
According to the financial statement of WHO presented at the World Health Assembly last year, the organization received a total of USD 2.74 billion in funding. The largest contributors are the US, with USD 281 million, the UK with USD 205 million, Germany with USD 154 million and Japan with USD 86 million. From the African continent, the Democratic Republic of Congo stands out with a contribution of USD 24 million. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is the largest non-institutional donor with a massive USD 228 million – the second largest contributor overall behind the US. China contributed only USD 6 million. Two Chinese vaccine manufacturers, Beijing Tiantan Biological Products and Sinovac Biotech Ltd, both based in the Chinese capital, contributed a combined USD 92,000. While rejecting Trump’s stinging criticism, the WHO chief nonetheless made sure to thank the US for its generosity in funding global health initiatives like the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite Trump’s threat to “have a good look” at US funding, Tedros added that he believed the US “will continue to contribute its share”.
It would be interesting to explore the reason why USA has been disappointed over the leadership of WHO. The United States is stepping up its pressure on China over the COVID-19 pandemic with President Donald Trump saying his administration was trying to determine where the deadly disease originated from, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo additionally approached Beijing “to tell the truth” on what it knows. At a White House news gathering on 15 April, Trump received some information about reports of the infection spreading out from a research center in Wuhan, where the coronavirus first showed up. Trump’s top representative, Pompeo, in the meantime disclosed to Fox News Channel after Trump’s news gathering, “we realize this infection started in Wuhan, China,” and noticed that the Institute of Virology was just a bunch of miles from the market, where individuals previously contracted the ailment.
The U.S. and Chinese governments now appear more interested in provoking each other than cooperating to contain the damage wreaked by COVID-19. President Trump has taken to calling COVID-19 the “Chinese virus,” while senior Chinese authorities and state media have pushed an over the top hypothesis that the US made the infection and planted it in China during 2019 Military World Games of Wuhan. This enmity didn’t start, obviously, with the COVID-19. Experts on International Politics view that, ahead of the next election scheduled on 3 November 2020, Trump is trying to get voters to stop thinking of the COVID-19 as a public-health problem, and instead imagine it as a foreign-policy confrontation, with the important quality of leadership being the willingness to offend China.
Many experts and United Nations Professional acknowledge the strength of WHO in bringing together public health experts from around the world to exchange information, review scientific evidence, and make evidence-based consensus recommendations on disease prevention and control. Hence, disremembering the hostility, the US and China should cooperate by working together as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to unfold and the full extent of its economic repercussions become clear. Endeavors to address the emergency at a global level — laws to end perilous wet markets, collaboration over vaccine research, and understandings over measures to balance out the worldwide economy — will be subject to the capacity of the leaders and negotiators in the United States and China to move beyond the blame dispensing and perceive their common advantages. Dropping the “Chinese virus” rhetoric will not solve these problems, but it is an easy way for the Trump administration to begin to reverse criticisms — at home and abroad —about its response to the pandemic.
Clearly, in a moment of true global crisis, none of these charges will save a single human life or limit the economic fallout. At a bare minimum, the US and China should share useful data on COVID-19 with each other and with global health institutions and assist the WHO in exploring how this pandemic can be contained. Washington and Beijing should exchange experts in a joint bid to develop treatments and a vaccine. They need to work together to create an early monitoring and surveillance system to contain future viral threats before they go global, and propose international standards for preparedness and best practices when the next public-health crisis appears, no matter where its source lies.
The US and China should start to lead the pack in making global stores of medicine and supplies for future crises. They should cooperate with the most exceedingly terrible casualty countries such as the UK, France and Italy, to support the global economy for revitalization. To wrap things up, instead of accusing each other, these two great powers should help fight the pandemic. The US has been a long-standing and generous supporter to WHO and the world hope it would continue to be so for the causes of humankind. It is the time to stand united and we shall overcome it.
