The international public-health group’s head has aided China’s coverup of the COVID-19 pandemic at every turn, endangering countless lives in the process.
I f the deadly and destructive made-in-China COVID-19 crisis has a silver lining, it is this: The strengths and weaknesses of particular leaders, governments, and institutions around the world have been exposed by the pandemic, thus providing an impetus for reform.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has come under particular scrutiny at a time of rising skepticism about the ability of international institutions to act responsibly and transparently independent of corrupt political influence. The U.S., which is by far the single largest funder of the WHO, has enormous leverage in this case, and is now beginning to use it: The Trump administration, angered by the WHO’s role in the pandemic crisis, recently announced that it would suspend and review the $400 million annual American contribution to the group.
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director-general, bears primary responsibility for its missteps in responding to the crisis, particularly its crucial early delay in classifying COVID-19 as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. It is thus appropriate to inquire about his background and the motivations that have driven his actions in this pandemic.
Tedros, a trained microbiologist who did earn an MSc in the immunology of infectious diseases at the University of London, was Ethiopia’s minister of health from 2005 to 2012, and subsequently its minister of foreign affairs from 2012 to 2016. He was also served on the nine-member executive committee of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), one of four ethnically based political parties making up the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), the brutal authoritarian regime that ruled Ethiopia with an iron fist from 1991 to 2019.
When Tedros sought to become WHO director-general in 2017, he met with fierce opposition to his candidacy from Ethiopians angry with his service to and defense of the country’s abusive regime, as well as his record as minister of health. He was ultimately confirmed despite allegations that, as minister of health, he directed the cover-up of three deadly cholera epidemics by simply insisting that they were Acute Watery Diarrhea (AWD), apparently hoping to avoid the impact that the public admission of a cholera epidemic might have had on Ethiopian tourism and the image of his party.
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Article URL : https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/who-chief-tedros-has-got-to-go/