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The executive director of the WHO emergency health program, Michael Ryan, said that “to say that atypical pneumonia is the same as SARS is completely incorrect.”
“Atypical pneumonia is an extremely common form of pneumonia that occurs worldwide. There are millions of cases every year ”and what it means is that it cannot be diagnosed as pneumonia caused by the most common causes, generally bacteria, but potentially viruses.
Steve Solomon again rejected any WHO favor with China over Taiwan due to animosity between the island and Beijing, which does not recognize sovereignty and formally considers it a Chinese province.
“About 49 years ago, the United Nations and WHO decided that there was only one legitimate representative of China in the United Nations system: the People’s Republic of China,” that is, mainland China.
That decision “still stands,” said Solomon, saying that the WHO, as the United Nations “specialized agency”, must be consistent with the organization to which it belongs.
“The role of WHO staff is not to get involved in geopolitical issues,” he said, stressing that the principles of “neutrality and impartiality” that govern the organization “exist to keep them away from these problems.”
Steve Solomon reiterated that this does not prevent the technical participation of representatives of Taiwan in the exchange of information and in WHO’s international collaboration mechanisms.
Regarding Taiwan’s participation, including as an observer, in the World Health Assembly, the main meeting of WHO member countries, vetoed by China, Solomon said that “the WHO secretariat has no authority to decide” On the matter, only member states can change this status.
Globally, according to a report by the AFP news agency, the covid-19 pandemic has already claimed more than 247,000 deaths and infected more than 3.5 million people in 195 countries and territories.
More than a million patients were considered cured.
In Portugal, 1,063 people died of the 25,524 infected people and there are 1,712 recovered cases, according to the General Directorate of Health.
