WH: US may rejoin WHO if it reduces reliance on China

Washington, June 1: The US will consider rejoining the World Health Organisation if it ends corruption and reliance on China, the White House has said. President Donald Trump on Friday terminated America’s relationship with the WHO and accused the global health body of being hand in glove with China in sharing inaccurate information to the world about the Covid-19 pandemic that has killed more than 370,000 people globally.

“The WHO needs to reform. What the president said, if the WHO reforms and ends the corruption and ends the reliance on China, the US will very seriously consider coming back,” US National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien said.

The US has said that it will spend the money, over $400 million which it gives to the WHO, on other international public health bodies. “In the meantime, we’re going to take that $400 million that the US spends, compared to the $40 million that the Chinese spends on the WHO. And we’re going to make sure it gets to frontline health care workers,

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like we’re doing with PEPFAR in Africa,” he said.

“The WHO isn’t saving lives for AIDS and HIV victims in Africa. It’s the United States and our generous taxpayers who are saving those lives in Africa. We’re not doing it through the WHO. We’re doing it as the United States of America,” he said.

“We’re going to take the same money and make sure it gets to the Doctors Without Borders and the Red Cross and the hospitals all over the world that need it, and doesn’t go through a corrupt international organisation that’s controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. That’s for sure,” O’Brien said. He said that the US has a series of measures to deal with China and the way they’ve choked out freedom in Hong Kong.