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The WHO has failed us again This isn't the first time the World Health Organisation has let politics get in the way of saving lives

The WHO failed to react quickly enough to shut down the sorts of live food markets in China that were the source of past pandemics. Credit: China Photos/Getty Images)

The WHO failed to react quickly enough to shut down the sorts of live food markets in China that were the source of past pandemics. Credit: China Photos/Getty Images)


April 1, 2020   6 mins

Like many doctors, Bruce Aylward has been working tirelessly since this coronavirus started its rampage around the planet, although his job takes him away from the medical frontline filled with patients fighting for life. The Canadian physician, a trained epidemiologist, is one of the most influential officials in global efforts to beat this pandemic through his role as assistant director-general at the World Health Organisation (WHO).

Much of his time has been spent in the media, often praising China for its response to an epidemic that emerged last year in the central city of Wuhan. Aylward led a WHO mission there last month and was clearly impressed, even saying if he had the virus he wanted to be treated there.

He has talked in glowing terms of China’s ‘rigour’ and its ‘aggressive response’ in controlling the disease. “China is really good at keeping people alive,” he told the New York Times, complaining that sceptical journalists see the nation as “some evil fire-breathing regime that eats babies.”

China’s leaders do not eat babies. But they do run a very repressive autocracy that banned families from having more than one child, controls citizens with the world’s most sophisticated state surveillance system, jails critics and locks up Muslim minorities in horrific prison camps.

Like it or not, they merit criticism also for their failure to clamp down on the wild animal markets that almost certainly sparked our current dystopian nightmare — despite the seemingly similar emergence of SARS in 2002 — while officials stymied efforts to warn about the outbreak for several crucial weeks.

Yet Aylward, raised in one of the world’s most benign societies, panders to the crude narrative of Communist Party chieftans, who now pose as heroes of this pandemic. So when a Taiwanese journalist asked about her country’s laudable response to the virus, he paused for several seconds, pretended not to hear the question and then appeared to hang up on her call. The reporter dialled back, but was brushed off with the reply that “we’ve already talked about China — and when you look across all the different areas of China, they’ve actually done quite a good job.”

Such words could have spewed from the mouth of a tremulous Beijing bureaucrat. China wants to reunite Taiwan with its ‘motherland’ seven decades after it became a refuge for Chiang Kai-Shek’s nationalists, defeated by Mao’s Communist forces. This desire has hardened under President Xi Jinping, who uses his nation’s growing muscle to bully any country, firm or institution showing the slightest sign of support for its minnow of a neighbour. Yet the island remains fiercely independent, as shown by recent elections, and an admirable beacon of democracy, freedom and rule of law.

Aylward’s response was significant because it spotlights the pitiful way in which WHO — a branch of the United Nations heavily funded by Britain and the United States — has appeased China and failed in its central task to co-ordinate a global response to public health threats. Such is the absurdity that Taiwan’s 24 million citizens can travel around the planet on their own passports — yet not enter a United Nations building. It is far from unique in its approach to this nation, which remains unrecognised by other international bodies such as those governing civil aviation and the Olympics. But when it comes to coronavirus, this approach raises questions over the point of this global body.

Taiwan has one of the world’s best healthcare systems. It has responded well to coronavirus, learning valuable lessons from the SARS epidemic, like some other nations in the region, and reacting fast to keep down its death toll. Yet the country, which is barred from attending key WHO summits, was excluded from emergency meetings and expert briefings on the disease. It has accused the global body of ignoring its request for information when the virus broke out, arguing that this put lives at risk at a time when global co-operation was crucial.

Meanwhile Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director-general and Aylward’s boss, has gone out of his way to praise China’s “extraordinary” efforts to curb the deadly virus. “China is actually setting a new standard for outbreak response,” he said at one point. He also insisted the country deserved to be “congratulated” for protecting its people, along with “the people of the world”.

Just days later, the views of those citizens in China were glimpsed: the death of a doctor who was arrested for trying to warn about the outbreak sparked a rare outburst of open anger against the system.

Perhaps it is not surprising that Tedros endorsed this autocratic regime. He was, after all, health minister for seven years under Meles Zenawi in Ethiopia, who ran one of Africa’s most brutal one-party states, which jailed journalists, tortured dissidents and shot pro-democracy protesters. He was accused of covering up cholera outbreaks. Then shortly after defeating his British rival to win WHO’s top job, he tried to honour Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe by naming him a “goodwill ambassador”. Mugabe, bear in mind, so devastated his nation that life expectancy plunged by 26 years at one point; meanwhile, the elderly dictator flew abroad for treatment as his health deteriorated, before dying in Singapore last year aged 95.

This ridiculous idea was cancelled after a storm of protest. Human rights groups noted that Mugabe, an ally of China, was head of the African Union when it helped manoeuvre Tedros into the post. The Washington Post also pointed out that China “worked tirelessly behind the scenes” to help his cause, saying his success would be “a victory for Beijing” and for Xi’s desire to demonstrate his nation’s growing strength.

Does this explain why WHO echoed China’s opposition to travel restrictions in the early days of this crisis and now promotes the flawed idea that this nation is a role model for fighting the virus?

It gets worse. WHO was told about the disease on the last day of 2019. There are allegations China already knew about human-to-human transmission even as it was detaining doctors who were trying to protect the public over following days. Yet on January 14 WHO’s twitter account claimed that “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China.” Just three days later, one of its officials publicly intimated the new virus was being transmitted among humans, a critical revelation that highlighted the epidemic’s dangers — then this was confirmed by China after another three days.

 

Taipei officials said in late December they tipped off WHO — through a warning system designed for exchange of such facts — that medical staff in China were becoming ill: a clear indication of human-to-human transmission. But this critical information was not shared, since Taiwan was excluded from a key WHO platform; indeed, the body did not even bother to reply. “An opportunity to raise the alert level both in China and the wider world was lost,” Chen Chien-jen, Taiwan’s vice-president and an epidemiologist, told The Financial Times.

It took until the end of January before Tedros finally proclaimed coronavirus to be a public health emergency of international concern — by which time it had spread to 19 nations on four continents. Some experts defend his pragmatic need to work with China to contain the outbreak, despite scepticism over data. And despite WHO’s sluggishness to declare a pandemic, the body has been hailed for subsequent work to marshall global efforts to contain the virus. Yet when this crisis is concluded, there needs to be accountability for actions that have again damaged its credibility.

WHO was guilty of disastrous inaction over the deadly ebola outbreak six years ago, when its slack approach was accused of fuelling death and suffering. The terrible epidemic killed more than 11,000 people in three west African nations, provoking fear and paralysing these countries, as I saw for myself in Liberia.

Yet when Médecins Sans Frontières begged the world for help and warned the disease was out of control, it was rebuked by a WHO spokesman on social media. Only after four more months did this body, which is supposed to show global leadership, concede that  there was an international health emergency. A devastating inquiry by British and US experts accused it of “the most egregious failure” for failing to sound the alarm.

Reach back further in time and there are other examples of this body’s flaws, not least the inept way it coped with the Aids crisis that led the UN to set up a separate body for the disease. Possibly it was restrained in this new crisis by fear of seeming alarmist, having been criticised for calling the 2009 swine flu outbreak a pandemic when it turned out milder than expected. This could explain why, at the end of last month Tedros, still downplayed the disease. “Using the word pandemic carelessly has no tangible benefit, but it does have significant risk in terms of amplifying unnecessary and unjustified fear and stigma, and paralysing systems,” he said.

Like other UN bodies, this organisation has a tough job balancing a big leadership role with systemic flaws and competing national interests. Set up in 1948 to help the world attain “highest possible level of health”, its strategic scope ranges from curbing smoking and tackling child obesity through to antibiotic resistance and preparing for emergencies. Unfortunately, again like some other UN bodies, it is bloated, bureaucratic, struggles for funds, suffers from organisational dysfunction and is stuffed with political stooges.

When we emerge from this dark cloud, the world may look very different. Yet one thing is certain: this cruel pandemic has exposed with the most terrible clarity that we need a global health body free of politics, unfettered by diplomatic restraints and fearless about telling the truth.


Ian Birrell is an award-winning foreign reporter and columnist. He is also the founder, with Damon Albarn, of Africa Express.

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James Chilton
James Chilton
4 years ago

The physicians employed by the WHO are political appointments. It is not likely they will have dispassionate and honest views about the origin of the Covid epidemic.

Fraser Bailey
Fraser Bailey
4 years ago
Reply to  James Chilton

Yes, the guy in charge was put there by the Chinese. And he is known to have suppressed reports of at leat two cholera outbreaks in Ethiopia (I think he’s from Ethiopia) when he was Health Minister or PM in that particular country.

awotash2002
awotash2002
4 years ago
Reply to  Fraser Bailey

He was Health Minister

Fraser Bailey
Fraser Bailey
4 years ago

I think we all know that the WHO, the UN and all such supra-national organisations are corrupt and incompetent. But at least, for once, we have an article that points this out. Fox News and some of the US podcasters have gone after Aylward but the rest of the media – in the UK and the US – is silent on the matter and continues to carry water for China while bashing Trump.

nickhuntster
nickhuntster
4 years ago

Good expose. Now could Ian Birrell do the same for the Chinese coverup of its bio-scientists’ discoveries in Wuhan? You just need to duck duck go the 2013 paper in Nature showing how the Wuhan team sought, found, and isolated coronaviruses from Horseshoe bats as long ago as 2012. They only sought those pathogens transmissible to humans. A new paper by other Chinese scientists in Nature 26/3/20 makes zero mention of the earlier findings and says ‘Malayan’ pangolins in wet markets ‘may’ have transmitted to humans. Such ignorance is impossible in a tiny expert community. Obvious disinformation now taken up by our naive MSM

jlbarreiro1
jlbarreiro1
4 years ago

1.- Margaret Chan, the former WHO General Director (2007-2017), is Chinese. She was in charge of the Ebola crisis.

2.- By February 14th, while many international air companies (British Airways, American Airlines, KLM, Iberia, Air France) closed the flights to China… Ethiopian Airlines maintained opened the trips to China. By then: 1,300 dead and 60.000 infected.
Tewolde Gebremariam, Ethiopian Airlines CEO, explained that “Ethiopian Airways serve countries in good times and bad times”; he emphasized the strong relation between Ethiopia and China; “f we stop the flights to China, we break that relation.”

3.- There are among 200.000 and 2M Chinese citizens in Africa. Air traffic increased in the last decade by 630%”many through the air hub in Ethiopia. Ethiopian Airways operate half of 2.600 iannual flights between Africa and China.

4.- The main Ethiopian international airport – Bole, Adis Abeba – has increased by three times its size… thanks to a Chinese loan of 363M USD.

Geopolitics and economic interests should be reviewed. And the role of WHO.

ojiz
ojiz
4 years ago

If in these year and age we still have people of this attitude in very sensitive positions like WHO, I think it’s high time we all show more love, the officials are definitely politicised the way they response to incidents

Peter Webster
Peter Webster
4 years ago

I generally take a sceptical line on conspiracy theories, but recognise there are no limits to the Chinese determination to maintain power and control.
I’m seeing more persuasive evidence on the Internet and from wuhan that this virus started from the virology laboratory some 300 mtrs from the live animal market.
One of the scientists recruited to study this virus is not longer listed as a member of staff, the authorities there have not been able to reveal her and speculation is that she may have been the first victim of this virus. Certainly it seems the laboratory may have been recruiting scientists during November 2019 and if so I would expect they knew about this earlier than we generally accept.

Dick Mitchell
Dick Mitchell
4 years ago

The chances of getting a “body free of politics” under our current forms of government and while there are still at least 2 people alive on this planet are not good. Our populations are soaked in politics and social media seems to be nothing but political. Even discussions of serious events like this pandemic are corrupted by politics blaming leftist bullies or Trump.

Francisco Gonzalez Velasco
Francisco Gonzalez Velasco
4 years ago

The sad point is that while WHO was sluggish advicing governments to take measures against covid 19, most governments were even more sluggish to comply.

Francisco Gonzalez Velasco
Francisco Gonzalez Velasco
4 years ago

WHO was sluggish to provide guidance. But most governments were even more sluggist to implement.

Stephen Laundy
Stephen Laundy
3 years ago

UEFA, FIFA, I.O.C all world governing bodies. All totally above board like WHO.
This is a really good article. Looking at where it started and how is interesting. The China wet fish markets never did it for me as why not the rubbish tips in Brazil or India the ones the children collect on, far more toxic.
Why does it have to be a country that started it, why not a company? Or a group of companies in the same industry who would benefit the most financially. If they started it in China no-one would have the power to bully to get the facts.

Last edited 3 years ago by Stephen Laundy
godfree
godfree
4 years ago

The WHO has joined Venezuela, Russia, Cuba, and China is a target for righteous American wrath. Why?

Could it be because the WHO is an independent body of international public health experts who refuse to allow their opinions to be politicized?

Could it be that the thousands of Western writers who are subsidized to demean non-capitalist targets have been alerted to the threat and told to attack it?

In any case, statements like this are demonstrably false and serve only to discredit media that publish them: “China’s leaders .. run a very repressive autocracy that banned families from having more than one child, controls citizens with the world’s most sophisticated state surveillance system, jails critics and locks up Muslim minorities in horrific prison camps… they merit criticism also for their failure to clamp down on the wild animal markets that almost certainly sparked our current dystopian nightmare ” despite the seemingly similar emergence of SARS in 2002.” Let’s take those one at a time.

1. China’s leaders run a very repressive autocracy. Not nearly as repressive as America’s, which regularly practices
“¢ warrantless surveillance of private phone and email conversations.
“¢ SWAT teams raiding homes;
“¢ thousands of shootings of unarmed citizens by police annually
“¢ harsh punishment of schoolchildren in the name of zero tolerance
“¢ endless unpopular wars
“¢ secret bans on 50,000 people from flying and refusing explanations
“¢ imprisoning 2,000,000 people witout trial
“¢ executing 2,000 people each year without trial.
“¢ out-of-control government spending with little benefit to citizens
“¢ heavily armed, militarized police;
“¢ roadside strip searches;
“¢ roving border sweeps that imprison citizens and non-citizens alike
“¢ privatized prisons with a profit incentive for jailing citizens;
“¢ fusion centers that collect and disseminate data on citizens’ private transactions
“¢ militarized agencies with stockpiles of ammunition.

banned families from having more than one child, Nonsense. Rural families could have two and ethnic minorities as many as they wished. Urban families were asked to space children three years apart.

controls citizens with the world’s most sophisticated state surveillance system. If it controls its citizens at all it is by doing what they promise and practicing what they preach. Face recognition is wildly popular.

jails critics…Despite the reports in our media, China doesn’t jail critics. Says Harvard’s Gary King[1], “Contrary to much research and commentary, the purpose of the censorship program is not to suppress criticism of the State or the Communist Party. Indeed, despite widespread censorship of social critics, we find that when Chinese people write scathing criticisms of their government and its leaders the probability that their post will be censored does not increase. Instead, censored tweets were equally likely to be against the state, for the state, irrelevant, or factual reports about events. Negative, even vitriolic criticism of the state, its leaders and its policies are not more likely to be censored.”

locks up Muslim minorities in horrific prison camps Nonsense. The World Muslim Council sent inspectors from 12 muslim nations to Xinjiang. Their collective judgement was that they were ‘envious’ of the way China treats its radicalized, illiterate muslim youth.

they merit criticism also for their failure to clamp down on the wild animal markets that almost certainly sparked our current dystopian nightmare.” The wild animal markets had nothing to do with it, as researchers have demonstrated. The outbreak most likely began in Virginia, USA but we won’t know until the CDC releases it Patient Zero data”“which it refuses to do.

[1] “Reverse-Engineering Chinese Censorship”. Harvard Magazine, Gary King, September 12, 2013

Roland Powell
Roland Powell
4 years ago

China has coped well with the pandemic. To date the USA has not which will cost many their lives. Many of those who will die from Trump’s decisions put him there.

Dave Weeden
Dave Weeden
4 years ago
Reply to  Roland Powell

I don’t call detaining whistleblowers coping well. https://apple.news/AIpbWWNg
And there’s some evidence that China has lied about the numbers, too. If it were proved that 42,000 had died, would you still say that China has coped well?
https://apple.news/AUNKYgIZ

David George
David George
4 years ago
Reply to  Roland Powell

The number of cases in Wuhan was already exponential when five million from that area were free to travel around China and around the world for the Chinese new year.
Thanks for that China and a pat on the back from Roland.