Politico | Coronavirus: US Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee calls for WHO chief to testify
- Lawmaker Todd Young says World Health Organisation ‘gave sanction’ to ‘ham-fisted’ Chinese response to outbreak
- WHO has been facing fierce criticism from Trump and Senate Republicans over handling of pandemic
This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Marianne Levine on politico.com on April 9, 2020.
US Senator Todd Young is calling on World Health Organisation Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to appear before a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee to answer questions about the organisation’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
The WHO in recent days has faced heated criticism from Senate Republicans and President Donald Trump, who argue the organisation did not do enough to scrutinise China’s response to the outbreak.
“It has given sanction to the ham-fisted response of the Chinese and the misinformation perpetuated by the Chinese,” Young said in an interview. “On all fronts I’ve been not just unimpressed but outraged by the responsiveness and the performance of the World Health Organisation.”
In his letter to Tedros, Young criticised the WHO for praising China’s initial response to the coronavirus and for relying on data from the Chinese government.
“The Chinese government’s systematic failure, a failure verified by our intelligence community, to accurately report the number of cases is damaging our epidemiological knowledge of Covid-19,” the Indiana Republican wrote. “Rather than publicly and forcefully combat this obstruction, the WHO has assisted.”