MOSCOW, April 15 — UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said, after US President Donald Trump’s statement on the suspension of funding for the World Health Organisation (WHO), that it was not the right time now to do so, reported Sputnik news agency.
Trump said Tuesday evening that he had instructed his administration to stop US funding for the WHO, which he accused of grossly mismanaging and covering up the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19).
“It is also not the time to reduce the resources for the operations of the World Health Organisation or any other humanitarian organisation in the fight against the virus,” Guterres said.
“As I have said before, now is the time for unity and for the international community to work together in solidarity to stop this virus and its shattering consequences,” he said.
Last week, Guterres said the COVID-19 pandemic was one of the most dangerous challenges the world faced in our lifetime, adding that it was above all a human crisis with severe health and economic consequences. He said that later, when the pandemic was over, there must be a time to look back to understand how such a disease had emerged and spread its devastation so fast, but that now it was not that time.
The WHO on March 11 declared the outbreak of the new coronavirus a pandemic. According to the latest WHO data, more than 1,844,000 cases of COVID-19 have been registered in the world, and over 117,000 people have died from the disease.
According to Johns Hopkins University, the number of confirmed cases worldwide amounts to 1,980,003, with 126,557 deaths and 485,917 recoveries.
