The coronavirus was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization a year ago on Thursday and a year later, the UN agency is still struggling to keep up with COVID-19’s evolving science.
Along the way, the agency made some costly mistakes with WHO refraining from publicly chastising countries, particularly China for errors that senior officials have expressed dissatisfaction with. “WHO has been a little behind, cautious rather than precautionary,” says Luca Burci, an ex-WHO legal counsel.
Burci says that “Everyone has been wondering why WHO was so praising China back in January, 2020”, and that the praise has “come back to haunt WHO big-time.”
The virus had spread to every contiguous country by the time WHO declared the pandemic. According to the claims of an expert, the WHO’s failure to endorse masks earlier “cost lives.”
“This isn’t a one-time occurrence. It’s happening now and will continue to do so in the future “she explains.
The World Health Organization is now working to ensure that people in the world’s poorest countries receive vaccine doses.
Experts estimate that the initiative has only a fraction of the 2 billion vaccines it hopes to deliver by the end of the year.
The WHO initiative aims to ensure that people in low-income countries receive COVID-19 vaccines.
According to WHO, the virus is spread through the air.If WHO’s recommendations aren’t strong enough, the pandemic could last much longer,” experts say.
The world is on the verge of a “catastrophic moral failure,” according to WHO chief Tedros, if vaccines are not distributed fairly. He has requested that developed countries immediately share their doses with developing countries. But no one has complied.
The World Health Organization has repeatedly declined to sanction wealthy countries for their botched efforts to combat the virus. Amanda Glassman, executive vice-president of the Center for Global Development, says, “It’s time to call things out for the way they are.” “We can’t tell individual countries what to do,” senior adviser Dr. Bruce Aylward told a press conference earlier this month.
