Filtering of WHO records on pandemic strategies: “It’s macabre”

As the coronavirus spread around the world, scientists at the World Health Organization (WHO) were sometimes frustrated by the mistakes of some of its major donors, even if they were reluctant to say so in public, records show meeting disclosed. internal body.

The United Nations health agency, which has been widely criticized for not taking a stronger stance to curb the pandemic, is holding its annual meeting this week under intense pressure to reform.

The WHO also hopes that the President-elect of the United States, Joe Biden, will reverse the decision to leave the organization announced in June by the outgoing government of Donald Trump.

One of the main dilemmas for the WHO is that it lacks the capacity to impose measures or independently investigate epidemics. Instead, the agency relies on behind-the-scenes negotiations and country cooperation.

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As the pandemic began to accelerate, the WHO often avoided targeting some of its major donors, such as Japan, France and Britain.

WHO scientists have described some of their strategies as “gruesome” and “an ill-fated laboratory to study the virus,” according to dozens of leaked records of internal WHO meetings and documents dated between January and April and consulted by The Associated Press.

“By not saying what it thinks when countries do questionable things, the WHO is undermining its own authority as the planet is on fire,” said Sophie Harman, professor of international politics at Queen Mary University in London.

Others said it would be a bad strategy for the WHO to be too critical unless countries gave the agency more power.

“If Tedros adopted a very aggressive strategy towards member states, there would be repercussions,” said Suerie Moon, co-director of the Global Center for Health and the University Institute of Geneva, referring to the director general of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

WHO spokesperson Farah Dakhlallah said that since the start of the coronavirus epidemic, “WHO officials have had and continue to have open and honest conversations with their government counterparts. . We pride ourselves on an organizational culture that fosters candid conversations. “

It is not uncommon for the WHO to publicly question its Member States. He threatened to close his office in China when the country hid cases during the SARS epidemic and sharply criticized Nigeria for stopping boycotting the polio vaccine in 2003.

The organization’s reluctance to nominate countries started with China, as the PA reported at the time. Although Tedros met with Chinese President Xi Jinping in January, information from Beijing remained scarce throughout February. Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO technical officer for Covid-19, said the agency lacked “sufficient details to say what worked and what didn’t”.

WHO scientists were quick to express their concern for Japan. On February 1, a passenger who disembarked from the Diamond Princess cruise ship tested positive for coronavirus. During the ship’s next stopover in Yokohama, authorities quarantined the 3,711 people on board.

WHO emergency chief Michael Ryan then told reporters: “Let’s be careful not to overdo it.” But on February 10, the number of cases nearly doubled overnight.

“No wonder, given the nature of the research response,” Ryan said at an internal meeting, noting that Japan had only assigned a small number of epidemiologists to the case.

Dr Thomas Grein, head of the severe incident management team, said they had not received much information from their Japanese counterparts, describing it as a “very, very sensitive” problem.

While the WHO is well aware the situation is worsening, scientists have said the outbreak may help understand how the virus is transmitted.

“It’s unfortunate, but it’s a useful opportunity to study the natural history of the virus,” Ryan said.

At the end of February, the virus also spread across Italy, making Europe the epicenter of the pandemic.

At the WHO, Grein told his colleagues WHO’s efforts to get more information about the growing outbreaks in Italy and elsewhere had “failed dramatically”, amid concerns over lack of action. through Europe.

However, Tedros tweeted on March 8 that “the Italian government and people are taking bold and courageous action, aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus.”

Lawrence Gostin, director of the WHO Collaborative Center on Public Health Law and Human Rights at Georgetown University for Human Rights, said WHO should be obliged to report when countries do not share data, stating that this is dangerous for the “fly blind” agency.

The WHO has also complained privately that Western countries have scarce resources to deal with the pandemic.

“We had the terrible situation yesterday with (the personal protection team) where all the equipment was requisitioned in France and we lost access,” Ryan told his colleagues.

As countries in Europe adopted social distancing measures and canceled crowds in early March, Ryan pointed to one country that was not: Britain.

“There isn’t a single sporting event in Europe, and yet every Premier League match in the UK will take place,” he said. Ryan called Britain’s strategy to deal with the pandemic “problematic,” after hearing the country’s chief scientist say the country aspired to obtain collective immunity.

“For that to happen, hundreds of thousands and millions of old people are going to be infected, and there will be so many deaths,” Ryan said. Still, he noted that the various strategies for dealing with COVID-19 around the world could become “one huge ecological study” that would allow the WHO to document what worked.

“It’s macabre in some ways, but it’s the reality,” he said.

WHO’s role in stopping the pandemic in the future will depend in part on the audit of an independent group. Harman, the expert from Queen Mary University, said she understands the WHO bore a huge responsibility in the first months of the crisis, but noted that even bigger challenges are now looming.

“I believe that with the next wave of the pandemic, the time for quiet diplomacy has passed,” he said.