USA-WHO-COVID-19

USA-WHO-COVID-19

Part of: GS-II- IO (PT-MAINS-PERSONALITY TEST)

The U.S. halting its funding of the WHO.

The U.S. President has criticized World Health Organization (WHO) for its handling of the COVID-19 Pandemic and has alleged that the organisation was “very China centric”.

The WHO has been accused of mismanaging the COVID-19 crisis and failing to vet information and share it in a timely and transparent manner. The U.S. president has halted funding to the WHO pending a review.

Details:

The World Health Organization:

• WHO is a United Nations agency created in 1948 to coordinate and direct the UN’s global health efforts.
• It is headquartered in Geneva.
• The WHO plays a crucial role in the domain of public health.
  • Given the many public health efforts going around the world, it helps co-ordinate such efforts.
  • It collects data, reports, evidences, best practices and shares the same among the global community thus helping enhance the effectiveness of such efforts. It processes available medical information and compiles and provides resource to everyone.
  • It also provides important guidelines regarding travel restrictions and patient care, which serves as an important source for medical professionals.

Criticism of WHO’s handling of the Pandemic:

Failed to live up to its expectations:

• The main role of the WHO is to monitor world health situation and prevent health outbreaks. In this respect it has definitely failed to live up to its responsibilities.
• The WHO took time till the middle of January, 2020 to suggest human-to-human transmission of the virus, toeing the China line for the first few weeks.
• Despite various reports from other countries on the high human to human transmission of the COVID-19, the WHO delayed declaring it as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern which could have helped the countries prepare for a possible large scale spread of the disease.
• The WHO failed to be proactive and had repeatedly claimed that the situation seemed to be in control.
• Only after global spread and things went out of control did the WHO declare COVID-19 as a pandemic. It failed to alert the global community.

Sided with Chinese:

• The initial reports about COVID-19 were suppressed by China. The Whistle blower doctor was arrested on charges on spreading rumours. China failed to inform the other countries of the seriousness of the epidemic.
• WHO ignored important reports on the transmission of the disease and even condemned efforts from other countries to ban air travel from China.
• It is in this respect that the WHO has been blamed for siding with China.

Counter arguments:

• Several public health academics have argued that the U.S. president’s criticism of the organisation is misplaced.

Previous role:

• The WHO has done commendably well previously. Its handling of SARS, ebola, polio etc is an example.

Low budget:

• The WHO budget is low. This makes it ill-equipped to effectively fulfill its wide mandate and responsibilities.

Concerns in WHO functioning:

• The context in which WHO functions limits its effectiveness.
  • WHO has no authority over its 194-member countries and, as is typical for UN agencies, depends on member contributions to carry out its work.
  • As is often the case with UN agencies, WHO is not immune to political motivations and an inertia that often comes with large bureaucracies.

Limitations of a multilateral body:

• WHO is a multilateral body charged with global health. It is only as good as its member nations.
  • Some countries are stepping back from responsibility under the WHO framework.
  • A few governments have also reduced their budgetary support to the WHO, which has forced the WHO to mobilize private contributions to support its activities. This is not a good development for a multilateral organization mandated to play a crucial role.
  • WHO is dependent on countries for giving information. It is possible that China could have given wrong information to WHO.

Pandemic unprecedented:

• The present COVID-19 Pandemic is unprecedented when compared to previous pandemics like the Spanish flu. The increased movement and interactions among human beings with increased globalization has led to the unprecedented spread of the disease.

Concerns about the halting of funding by U.S.:

• The U.S. is the WHO’s largest contributor. For the 2018 and 2019 biennium, the U.S. contributed about 20% of WHO’s budget. The funding freeze is highly likely to negatively impact WHO’s functioning for a short while at least, given the significant contribution the U.S. makes.
• The major share of the U.S. programmatic funding went towards polio eradication ($158 million), increasing access to essential health and human services ($100 million) and vaccine-preventable disease ($44 million). The fund freeze can undermine previous progress in public health.

Conclusion:

• WHO would have to work with its partners to fill any financial gaps that arise to ensure that its work continues uninterrupted.