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China announces $2 billion in virus help at WHO assembly

Published:Monday | May 18, 2020 | 9:36 AM
In this Monday, February 24, 2020 file photo, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), addresses a press conference about the update on COVID-19 at the World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP, File)

GENEVA (AP) — China will provide $2 billion over two years to fight the coronavirus pandemic and the economic fallout from it, President Xi Jinping said Monday, rallying around the World Health Organization even as the United States has slashed funding for the U.N. health agency and sought to undermine its credibility.

The European Union’s 27-member bloc and other countries, meanwhile, called for an independent evaluation of WHO’s initial response to the coronavirus pandemic “to review experience gained and lessons learned.”

In a speech to the World Health Assembly, Xi said China had provided all relevant outbreak data to WHO and other countries, including the virus’s genetic sequence, “in a most timely fashion.”

“We have shared control and treatment experience with the world without reservation,” Xi said. “We have done everything in our power to support and assist countries in need.”

The $2 billion over the next two years will support COVID-19 response efforts, including economic and social development, particularly in developing countries, Xi said.

The EU resolution proposes that the independent evaluation should be initiated “at the earliest appropriate moment” and should, among other issues, examine “the actions of WHO and their timelines pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

US President Donald Trump has in recent weeks repeatedly attacked WHO, claiming it helped China conceal the extent of the coronavirus pandemic in its early stages.

Several Republican lawmakers have called on the WHO chief to resign.

In his address to the annual meeting of WHO’s member countries, director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned there is still “a long road to travel” before the pandemic is contained, noting that the majority of the world’s population remains susceptible to the virus.

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