WHO answers Trump’s attack with call for unity against COVID-19

Enlarge / World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attends a daily press briefing on COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, at the WHO headquarters in Geneva on March 11, 2020. (credit: Getty | Fabrice Coffrini)

The director-general of the World Health Organization called for global unity and continued focus on saving lives and fighting the common enemy, COVID-19, on Wednesday-a day after US President Donald Trump attacked the organization for allegedly "severely mismanaging" the pandemic response. Trump announced he would halt funding to the WHO until his administration reviewed its response.

The WHO, an agency formed in the 1940s by the United Nations and supported by its member states, receives around 15 percent of its funding from the United States.

"We regret the decision of the President of the United States to order a halt in funding to the World Health Organization," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (aka Dr. Tedros) said in a press briefing Wednesday. "With support from the people and government of the United States, WHO works to improve the health of many of the world's poorest and most vulnerable people," he went on.

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