WHO denies ignoring Taiwan early virus warning

World Health Organisation on Friday denied having brushed off a Taiwanese warning on human-to-human transmission of new coronavirus soon after its outbreak in China late last year.

US has accused body of "putting politics first" by igring Taiwan's warning in late December, and thus helping Beijing conceal pandemic's gravity.

President Donald Trump has threatened to withhold funding for WHO, which is at forefront of fighting pandemic that has infected more than 1.5 million people worldwide since emerging in Wuhan, China.

United States said Thursday it was "deeply disturbed that Taiwan's information was withheld from global health community, as reflected in WHO's January 14, 2020 statement that re was indication of human-to-human transmission".

But on Friday Geneva-based UN body sent AFP an email in which it denied charges.

WHO said it received an email on December 31 from Taiwanese authorities which mentioned "press reports of cases of atypical pneumonia in Wuhan and that Wuhan authorities believed "it was t SARS", or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome which killed 774 people in 2002 and 2003.

"re was mention in this mail of human-to-human transmission," WHO maintained.

UN body said it had asked Taiwanese authorities to show how it "communicated to us" ir suspicions about transmission, insisting "we are only aware of this single email which makes mention of transmission between humans".

"But we have t received a response," WHO said.

Its boss Tedros Adham Ghebreyesus, who has urged world leaders "t to politicise virus" has received backing of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres who said it was t time to criticise an "essential organisation".

Relations between WHO and Taiwan had been strained even before pandemic but have deteriorated even furr over past three months.

Critics of Tedros have accused WHO under his leadership of being too close to Beijing and complimentary of China's response to coronavirus.

Some public health experts say that WHO had little choice but to cooperate with China to preserve access in Wuhan.

China considers Taiwan -- a self-ruling democracy where mainland's defeated nationalists fled in 1949 -- to be a province awaiting reunification and has sought to exclude it from all international organisations.