62 nations, including India, seek ‘impartial’ probe into WHO response to Coronavirus crisis

A total of 62 countries, including India, backed a joint effort by Australia and European Union, calling for an independent inquiry into the World Health Organisation’s response to the Coronavirus pandemic, according to a draft resolution proposed for 73rd World Health Assembly (WHA) meeting beginning from Monday.

Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan will represent India at the World Health Assembly of the World Health Organization.

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The draft calls for “impartial, independent and comprehensive” probe into the Coronavirus crisis. Besides, an inquiry into the actions of the WHO and “their timelines pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic”.

Other major countries named in the EU-backed draft include Japan, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, South Korea, Brazil and Canada.

“Initiate, at the earliest appropriate moment, and in consultation with the Member States a stepwise process of impartial, independent and comprehensive evaluation, including using existing Mechanisms, as appropriate, to review experience gained and lessons learned from the WHO-coordinated international health response to COVID-19,” the draft reads, as reported by news agency ANI.

Meanwhile, the resolution has put pressure on China as it has been widely speculated that the novel Coronavirus emerged from the wet markets in the country, jumping species from bat to human.

The resolution doesn’t mention China’s name but says that there is need to continue to work closely with other organizations to “identify the zoonotic source of the virus and the route of introduction to human population, including possible role of intermediate hosts” and to enable this through “collaborative field missions.”

The move comes as over 200 nations have been scrambling to curb the spread of Coronavirus imposing weeks-long lockdowns and thereby impacting the economy in the worst ever way in history.

The overall number of global Coronavirus cases has increased to over 4.7 million, while the death toll has surpassed 315,000, according to the Johns Hopkins University.

The US currently accounts for the world’s highest number of cases and deaths at 1,486,515 and 89,562, respectively.

In terms of cases, Russia has the second highest number of infections at 281,752, followed by the UK (244,995), Brazil (241,080), Spain (230,698), Italy (225,435), France (179,693), Germany (176,369), Turkey (149,435) and Iran (120,198), the CSSE figures showed.

Meanwhile, the UK accounted for the second highest COVID-19 deaths worldwide at 34,716.

The other countries with over 10,000 deaths are Italy (31,908), France (28,111), Spain (27,563) and Brazil (16,118).

The 73rd World Health Assembly meeting will last two days and will be held in a virtual format due to restrictions in place to curb the spread of the virus which originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan last December.

The annual meeting comes at a time when WHO has attracted unprecedented global attention for its coordinating and advisory role during the pandemic.

But the organization has not escaped criticism nor controversy during its handling of the crisis, with the bulk of accusations of mismanagement coming from the US government, but also Australia and Germany.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has weathered much of the criticism and has been accused by US President Donald Trump of being biased towards Chinese information in the first weeks of the outbreak at the beginning of the year.

Ghebreyesus famously said that China had set “a new standard for outbreak control” and that the country’s actions had “bought the world time”.

This did not stop Trump from freezing US funding of WHO in April, which amounts to around 15 per cent of the organization’s entire budget.

Up until then, the US had traditionally been the organization’s main donor.