United States President, Donald Trump, has on Friday said that the country would be cutting off its relationship with the World Health Organisation (WHO).
President Trump’s words are coming after he had earlier accused the global body of covering up China following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic; an accusation WHO has dismissed.
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President Trump, at a press conference in the White House’s Rose Garden, said:
The WHO was under the control of the communist nation (China) and it failed to provide transparency over the origins of the COVID-19 outbreak.
He was also quoted by the New York Post on Friday to have said:
China has total control over the World Health Organisation.
The U.S. contributed $450 million to the WHO each year compared to China’s $40 million.
We have detailed reforms that it must make and engaged with them directly, but they have refused to act.
Because they have failed to make the requested and greatly needed reforms, we will today be terminating our relationship with the World Health Organisation and redirecting those funds to other worldwide and deserving urgent global public health needs.
The U.S. is the largest funder of the WHO but has had a frosty battle with it since the outbreak of the pandemic over its perceived poor handling of the global crisis that has claimed thousands of lives across the world.
According to WHO’s spokesman, Tarik Jasareviche, the organisation’s funding runs in two-year budget cycles. For the 2018 and 2019 funding cycle, the U.S. paid a $237 million required assessment as well as $656 million in voluntary contributions, averaging $446 million a year and representing about 14.67 per cent of its total budget.
President Trump, in April, announced the suspension of funding to the WHO claiming that the agency had covered up the severity of the COVID-19 outbreak in China and allowing it to spread around the world.
Over 100,000 Americans have died from the virus since the outbreak.
