GENEVA (AP) – When the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus epidemic a year ago on Thursday, it resisted the term and made the highly contagious virus preventable only weeks later.
A year later, the UN agency is still struggling to keep the evolving science of COVID-19 at the top, abandoning their nationalist tendencies and helping them get vaccinated where they are most needed.
The agency made some valuable mistakes along the way: it advised people against wearing masks for months and insisted that COVID-19 not spread widely in the air. He refused to publicly invite countries for the mistakes that private WHO officials made in private.
This created some difficult politics that challenged the credibility of the WHO and linked it between the two world powers, avoiding criticism from the Trump administration that the agency had just come out.
President Bn Biden’s support for the WHO may provide some breathing space, but the organization still faces a monumental task as it seeks to project some moral rights among universal keepers for vaccines that leave billions vulnerable.
“The WHO has lagged a bit, be more careful than cautious,” said Jean-Luc Bursi, now a former WHO of the Geneva Graduate Institute of Legal Advice. “In times of panic, crisis and so on, it would probably be better to stay on one limb – to take a risk.”
The WHO raised its first major warning flag on January 30, 2020, calling the outbreak an international health crisis. But many countries ignored or ignored the warning.
Experts say most governments took action only when WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanam declared the Brebras “epidemic” six weeks later, on March 11, 2020. By then, it was too late, and the virus had reached every continent except Antarctica.
A year later, the WHO still appears hamstring. A team led by the WHO traveled to China in January to investigate the origin of COVID-19, which was criticized for failing to thwart China’s fringe theory that the virus is transmitted by frozen seafood.
This comes after China was repeatedly praised by the WHO last year for its quick, transparent response – although recordings of private meetings were obtained by the Associated Press. Top officials showed frustration with the country’s lack of cooperation.
“Everyone is wondering why the WHO is praising China so much in January 2020,” Bursi added, adding that the praise has returned, “to harass the WHO.”
Some experts say the WHO’s mistakes have come at a high cost, and it relies heavily on iron-clad science instead of taking calculated risks to keep people safe – whether on strategies such as wearing masks or COVID-19 often flying in the air. .
Dr. Trish Greenhall, a professor of primary care health sciences at Oxford University, said sitting on WHO expert committees, “without a doubt, failed to support the WHO’s previous life mask.” Not until June Did the WHO advise people to wear masks regularly for a long time after other health agencies and numerous countries did so.
Greenhullg said she is less interested in asking the WHO to atone for past mistakes than to pursue her policies. In October, he wrote a letter to the head of the WHO Committee on Infection Control expressing concern about the lack of skills among some members. She never received a response.
“This scandal is not just in the past. It is in the present and in the future, “said Greenhall.
Raymond Taylier, an associate professor at McGill University in Canada who specializes in coronavirus, said that with the advent of new virus variants first introduced in Britain and South Africa, Can be dangerous. Is even more transmissible.
“If the WHO’s recommendations are not strong enough, we could see the epidemic continue for a long time to come.”
With many licensed vaccines, the WHO is now working to ensure that people in the world’s poorest countries receive doses through the COVAX initiative, which aims to ensure that poorer countries receive COVID-19 vaccines.
But COVAX has only a fraction of 2 billion vaccines It is expected to be delivered by the end of the year. Some countries that have been waiting for shots for months have been swept away. Choose to sign their own private deals for quick vaccine admission.
WHO chief Tedros has responded by urging nations to work in “unity”, warning that the world is on the brink of “catastrophic moral failure”. If the vaccines are not distributed properly. However he has asked rich countries No one is obliged to immediately share their doses with developing countries and not to make new deals endangering the supply of vaccines to poor countries.
“The WHO is trying to take the lead by moral authority, but when it is ignored by countries working in its own interests, it repeats ‘unity’ to show that they are not recognizing the reality,” said Amanda, executive vice president of the center. “Global development,” Glassman said. “It’s time to call for what it’s like.”
Yet, during epidemics, rich countries have repeatedly refused to be censored by the WHO for its incomplete efforts to stop the virus. Internally, as described by WHO officials Some of their largest member countries’ “unfortunate laboratory for studying viruses” and “macabre” approach to becoming a Covid-11 killer.
Criticism of rich countries criticizing China for the need to distribute vaccines or for telling the truth to leaders like the German president or not issuing visas quickly – Tedros seems to have gotten a little stronger voice recently. To the WHO-led investigation team.
Irwin Redlaner of Columbia University said the WHO should be more aggressive in instructing countries what to do, given the COVID-19 vaccine being distributed, in a highly unequal way.
“The WHO cannot order countries to do things, but they can provide very clear and unambiguous guidance that makes it difficult for countries not to comply,” Radley said.
Top WHO officials have repeatedly said that it is not the agency’s style to criticize countries.
During a press briefing this month, senior WHO advisor Dr. Bruce Alward simply said: “We can’t tell individual countries what to do.”
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AP Medical Writer Maria Cheng reports from London.
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