■ THE WHO SPENDS MORE ON TRAVEL THAN ON FIGHTING PUBLIC HEALTH CRISES, AP REPORTS

The cash-strapped World Health Organization (WHO) has been pleading for more money to respond to health crises worldwide, but it has also struggled to get its travel expenses under control. The WHO, according to documents the Associated Press obtained, routinely spends some US$200 million a year on travel. In comparison, it spends $71 million on AIDS and hepatitis; $61 million on malaria; and $59 million on tuberculosis. Stop booking business class flights or rooms in five-star hotels, some senior officials have advised in a memo. The organization was urged “to demonstrate that we are serious about managing this appropriately.”

The World Health Organization routinely spends about $200 million a year on travel — far more than what it doles out to fight some of the biggest problems in public health including AIDS, tuberculosis or malaria, according to internal documents obtained by The Associated Press.

Last year, WHO spent about $71 million on AIDS and hepatitis. On malaria, it spent $61 million. And to slow tuberculosis, WHO invested $59 million. Still, some health programs do get exceptional funding — the agency spends about $450 million trying to wipe out polio every year.

As the cash-strapped U.N. health agency has pleaded for more money to fund its responses to health crises worldwide, it has also been struggling to get its own travel costs under control.

Despite introducing new rules to try to curb its expansive travel budget, senior officials have com- plained internally that U.N. staffers are breaking the rules by booking perks like business class airplane tickets and rooms in five-star hotels.

On a recent trip to Guinea, WHO director-general Dr. Margaret Chan stayed in the biggest presidential suite at the Palm Camayenne hotel in Conakry. The suite has an advertised price of 900 euros ($1,008) a night. The agency declined to say who picked up the tab, noting only that her hotels are sometimes paid for by the host country.

But some say that sends the wrong message to the rest of the agency's 7,000 staffers.

"We don't trust people to do the right thing when it comes to travel," said Nick Jeffreys, WHO's director of finance, during an in-house seminar on accountability in September 2015 — a video of which was obtained by the AP.

Earlier that year, a memorandum was sent to Chan and other top leaders with the subject, "ACTIONS TO CONTAIN TRAVEL COSTS" in all-caps. The memo reported that compliance with rules that travel be booked in advance was "very low" and also pointed out that WHO was under pressure from its member countries to save money.

Travel would always be necessary, the memo said, but "as an organization we must demonstrate that we are serious about managing this appropriately."

In a statement to the AP, the U.N. health agency said "the nature of WHO's work often requires WHO staff to travel" and said costs had been reduced 14 percent last year compared to the previous year — although that year's total was exceptionally high due to the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

Since 2013, WHO has paid out $803 million for travel. WHO's approximately $2 billion annual budget is drawn from the taxpayer-funded contributions of its 194 member countries, with the United States the largest contributor.

With a staff of about 37,000 aid workers versus WHO's 7,000 staffers, Doctors Without Borders spends about $43 million on travel a year.