UN Secretary-General António Guterres said on Tuesday that now “is not the time” to cut off funds to the World Health Organization (WHO) in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to suspend funding to the agency.
“Once we have passed the page of this epidemic, there must be a time to look back and understand how this disease arose and how it spread its devastation so quickly around the world, and how everyone involved reacted to the crisis,” Guterres said in a statement.
“But now, ” he continued, “is not that moment. Just as this is not the time, nor is it the time to reduce resources for the operations of the World Health Organization or any other humanitarian organization in the fight against the virus.”
This Guterres statement follows Trump’s decision on Tuesday in the White House to suspend funding from WHO from the United States, its main donor.
“Today I order my Government to suspend funds from WHO as I review its conduct to determine the role of WHO and its serious mishandling and cover-up of coronavirus expansion,” the U.S. representative announced.
Trump justified his decision by WHO’s opposition to border closure to combat the spread of the virus, for not having acted before and for not only entrusting, but also “praised,” the Chinese government.
Russia’s criticism
Russia criticized the United States on Wednesday for its decision to suspend funding from the World Health Organization (WHO), calling it an attempt to endorse responsibility for the state of its health system.
“Politicians in this country (USA) always find culprits: of the pandemic, China and WHO; of the defeat of (Hillary) Clinton, Russia; of the problems of the US health system, (Vladimir) Putin, in person,” said Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.
The diplomat, in statements to the Interfax agency, stated that for the American political class “the important thing is to find an imaginary ‘specimen’ and present it to the world as proof of the guilt of others and their own infallibility.”
