World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is pushing back after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo claimed the WHO had been co-opted by China.
Tedros and other WHO officials said Thursday that Pompeo’s assertion that China has taken advantage of the global body were not true and that the WHO’s only focus is saving lives during the coronavirus pandemic, which first began in China.
“The comments are untrue and unacceptable and without any foundation for that matter,” Tedros said at a news briefing in Geneva. “WHO will not be distracted by these comments, and we don’t want the international community also to be distracted.”
The rebuke comes after Pompeo, while in London, said China had “co-opt international institutions like the World Health Organization.” In addition to Pompeo, President Trump has also accused the WHO of being too cozy with the Chinese government and has submitted a notice that the United States intends to pull out of the WHO by July of next year.
Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, a U.S. citizen who leads the WHO’s emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, also hit back on Pompeo’s assertion at the Thursday news conference.
“I feel the need to say something as an American, as a proud WHO employee,” Van Kerkhove said. “I have never been more proud to be WHO. … We are firmly focused on saving lives, as Dr. Tedros has said, firmly focused. We will not be distracted.”
The “co-opt” remarks are not new for Pompeo. Earlier this month, the secretary invoked the phrase when accusing China of attempting a “cover-up” at the outset of the pandemic, which has now sickened 15.3 million people and killed more than 625,000.
“When you have an incident in your country that could potentially lead to a pandemic, you have an obligation to report that and to allow others to come in and help you be transparent about it. The Chinese Communist Party chose differently. They co-opted the World Health Organization to achieve that cover-up,” he said during a July 15 interview.
The U.S. has had the most confirmed cases of COVID-19 since the health crisis began, and on Thursday, surpassed 4 million cases. The domestic death toll is now approaching 144,000.
