WHO calls meeting of health experts to assess coronavirus pandemic

International health experts, on April 30, will convene a meeting to asses the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic and present advise on updated recommendations, World Health Organisation said. This virtual meeting will mark three months since all the members agreed that COVID-19 was global health Emergency. The pandemic which originated in 2019 has spiralled to infect 3,221,029 and claim 228,252 lives across the world.

According to reports, the meeting will bring together 15 different experts from across the world under a treaty known as International Health Regulations. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus speaking elaborating further said that in the three months, since the Emergency Committee last met, "WHO has worked a day in, day out to sound the alarm, support countries and save lives”.

'We sounded the alarm early'

Ghebreyesus also outlined that WHO’s action started on Dec 31, 2019, after the organisation learnt about the ‘pneumonia of unknown cause’. He then revealed that WHO's pronouncement of global health emergency on Jan 30 was based on 'Emergency committee’s advice'. In the virtual briefing, the organisation's chief also provided a complete timeline of the organisation's response to the pandemic adding that the reason behind providing a timeline was that “to be to be clear about what WHO knew, and what we did”.

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Defending the Geneva-based organisation, he said that it has acted "early and quickly".  Previously, US President Donald Trump had halted US funding to the UN body after alleging mismanaging the coronavirus crisis. Trump has blamed WHO's "very much sided" approach to China on coronavirus crisis, asserting that many people are unhappy with the global health agency and feel that "it's been very unfair".  In an obvious reference to China, he reportedly said: "Everybody knows what's going on there." 

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Image credits: AP