There is no time to waste: WHO chief

(200317) -- BRUSSELS, March 17, 2020 (Xinhua) -- Photo taken in Brussels of Belgium on March 16, 2020 shows World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus speaking at a virtual press conference held in Geneva, Switzerland. More cases and deaths of COVID-19 have now been reported in the rest of the world than in China, the chief of the WHO said here on Monday, noting that a rapid escalation of the coronavirus cases has been seen in the past week. As of Monday morning, a total of more than 83,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been reported outside China, exceeding the cumulative number of infections in China, and over 6,400 patients have died of COVID-19 worldwide, according to WHO. (Xinhua/Zheng Huansong)

World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Wednesday said on Twitter that “there is no time to waste” and that WHO’s singular focus is on working to serve all people to save lives and stop the COVID-19 pandemic.

These remarks are believed to be the WHO chief’s first public response after the U.S. decision to suspend funding to WHO.

Also on Wednesday, Tedros retweeted a previous tweet from an epidemiologist, who said that after working for WHO for 10 years with six Director-Generals, he found Dr. Tedros is one of the best and the current political campaign against Tedros is wrong.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced late Tuesday that he had instructed his administration to suspend funding for the WHO, which he accused of “severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus.

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