The WHO’s coronavirus response shows that the organisation is broken, but fixing it must wait

While US President Donald Trump erred in withholding funding to the WHO, and it is incorrect to say China controls the global health body, it is in dire need of reform to ensure it focuses on science and evidence-based data

Bryan Mercurio

Published: 3:00am, 18 Apr 2020

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US President Donald Trump is wrong to withhold funding from the World Health Organisation. The global health body, however, has made serious mistakes since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak that have overwhelmed health systems and cost lives.

This crisis has exposed the WHO as primarily a political organ of the United Nations, rather than the science-based authority most people believe it to be. Almost every statement it made and advice it provided throughout January and February has been proven to be incorrect.

The WHO unquestioningly endorsed Chinese government information that there was no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission, doubted that asymptomatic patients could transmit the virus, questioned the effectiveness of healthy people wearing masks to prevent community spread, recommended against countries evacuating citizens from Wuhan and opposed flight restrictions and travel bans.

All the while, the WHO and, in particular, its director general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, praised China’s efforts at combating the virus as “setting a new standard” and insisted that China was “completely committed to transparency”.

WHO press briefings at times became almost comical as the effusive praise for China’s quarantine and isolation efforts would be quickly followed by advice to other nations not to adopt the same measures and cut off China from the world. More bizarre has been the organisation’s disquiet at the mere mention of Taiwan, despite the island’s impressive handling of the crisis.

The effusive praise continued even when it became clear that China had not been completely transparent from the beginning and as it continued to delay overseas scientists and WHO teams from visiting Wuhan – in fact, the WHO’s “advance” team only landed on the ground on February 10, well after the crisis began unfolding and far too late to make much of a difference.

The sad fact is that the WHO of today is a far cry from that which led the effort to eliminate polio in the late 1980s or even that which led a strong response to the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2002.

The WHO has little power to control member states or direct their behaviour. Instead, it must rely on a strong leader to encourage or even cajole nations to cooperate and act.

Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, former prime minister of Norway and then WHO director general, questioned China’s initial response to Sars and in so doing forced China to be more open about the nature and extent of that virus.

Such leadership has been lacking for some time. Hong Kong’s Dr Margaret Chan Fung Fu-chun led the WHO’s much maligned response to the emergence of Ebola in West Africa in 2014, which was heavily criticised for being tardy and eventually too heavy handed.

A member of the medical staff comforts a patient infected by the novel coronavirus at the ASST Papa Giovanni XXIII hospital in Bergamo, Italy, on April 3. The WHO declared the Covid-19 outbreak a pandemic only on March 12, even though the disease had spread rapidly in Italy by then. Photo: AFP

This experience left deep wounds and the organisation has since become almost paralysed by fear. A case in point is that the WHO didn’t even declare the coronavirus to be a pandemic until March 12.

Far from focusing on science, the WHO now simply receives, collates and repeats the information it receives from member states. It doesn’t question the data or ask the tough questions. That is problematic, but the larger issue is that it presents the data as evidenced-based facts, even in the face of obvious discrepancies and omissions.

For this reason, it is incorrect to say that China has captured and is controlling the organisation. Even worse, the WHO is captured by all its member states and is hesitant to take any measure which would offend any of them.

Trump’s decision to withhold funding is obviously a political move designed to cover his administration’s own failings in handling the crisis and an attempt to shift the blame to the WHO. It’s textbook politics, with potentially dire consequences. The decision is misguided for three reasons.

First, we are in the midst of a once-in-a-generation pandemic. There will be a time to hold the WHO accountable, but this is not the time.

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Dr Anthony Fauci with US President Donald Trump at a coronavirus task force briefing at the White House on April 13. Photo: Reuters

Second, the move is short-sighted, as with any inter-governmental organisation and UN agency, the larger players jostle for influence. Any US retreat will simply cede influence and control to China.

Third, in the days since Trump’s announcement, countries, and prominent figures have rushed to support the WHO, thereby risking that it will ever be held accountable for its mismanagement.

But make no mistake, the system is broken. The WHO must undertake an extensive investigation into its handling of the crisis and structurally change its processes and response to health emergencies. It may not be able to do so within the confines of the UN.

If that proves to be the case, the WHO’s mission should be narrowed and it should cease to operate as it does today. A partial defunding will be justified and a new world health authority should be established, centred on science and evidence-based advice and with global health its sole focus.

Bryan Mercurio is the Simon F.S. Li Professor of Law at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is the author of Drugs, Patents and Policy: A Contextual Study of Hong Kong

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