Was the World Health Organisation put under pressure not to declare an emergency?
C‘I don’t think there’s anything sinister happening. WHO does a good job of trying to genuinely represent all member states’
hina’s status as a major superpower clearly places it outside the “normal actions” of the World Health Organisation, experts warn, as the coronavirus outbreak spreads.
The novel virus has been detected in nearly every province in China and at least seven other countries, infecting more than 830 people and killing 26.
Experts thought the WHO would declare a global health crisis this week, which would put emergency measures in place. But it said it was too early, in a decision that baffled many.
“The criteria for declaring a health emergency of international concern have been met,” said Yanzhong Huang, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations.
As China has risen up the ladder to become the world’s second largest economy, Beijing’s appetite for greater recognition on the international stage has grown. The government has tried to curry favour at global organisations such as the International Monetary Fund and the United Nations.
Its lobbying efforts at the UN have prompted the US state department to dispatch Mark Lambert, the former special envoy to North Korea, to counter this “malign influence”.
Frances Eve, a deputy director at Chinese Human Rights Defenders, says: “China has a strategy of taking on more prominent roles in intergovernmental organisations. It is using them to promote Chinese interests.”
Its persistence paid off last May when the WHO included traditional Chinese medicine in its influential compendium, which categorises diseases and medical diagnoses.
Under Chinese pressure, the WHO excluded Taiwan from the World Health Assembly and from receiving global health advice for the past three years. Taiwan this week again warned that withholding WHO access was creating a loophole in the health security chain, creating a risk for all of Asia.
“That puts China outside some of the normal actions taken by WHO,” said Laurie Garrett, a member of the World Economic Forum’s global health security advisory board.
“But it would be wrong to imply that this is about money. China is a minor WHO donor, its paltry contributions utterly dwarfed by those from the US, UK and Gates Foundation,” she added.
China is not a big hitter – in 2018 it contributed $6.3million, compared with $200million from the UK and US.
Several experts said this should lose China influence in the WHO, rather than build it.
But Prof Trudie Lang, director of the global health network at Oxford university, said: “I don’t think there’s anything sinister happening. WHO does a good job of trying to genuinely represent all member states.”
But the agency has also faced criticism for its unwavering praise of the way Chinese authorities have handled the outbreak.
“The health commission in Wuhan could have been quicker in response,” said Chen Xi, a professor at Yale School of Public Health. Officials failed to share information soon enough, disclosing only to the world on Dec 31, though the mystery disease had been known about for weeks, missing a “golden time period” to implement robust emergency measures, he said.