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World Health Organization

Predicting Pestilence

December 7, 2023 Kathy Kelly, Progressive.org. , , ,
Speaking from a hospital ward about fifty meters from where a bomb had just exploded, UNICEF spokesperson James Elder raised his voice over the sound of children screaming. In a video posted on X (formerly known as Twitter), he emphasized that Gaza’s health care system is overwhelmed. Pointing at children packed into the ward of a hospital he said was operating at 200 percent capacity, Elder insisted the hospital “cannot take more children with the wounds of war . . . with the burns, with the shrapnel littering their bodies, with the broken bones.” Calling it a war on children, Elder warned that “inaction by those with influence is allowing the killing of children.”

Treat Climate And Biodiversity Crises As One Global Health Emergency

October 28, 2023 Cristen Hemingway Jaynes, EcoWatch. , , ,
A new editorial published in more than 200 health journals challenges health professionals and world leaders to look at global biodiversity loss and climate change as “one indivisible crisis” that must be confronted as a whole. The authors of the editorial call separating the two emergencies a “dangerous mistake,” and encourage the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare a global health emergency, a press release from The BMJ said. “The climate crisis and loss of biodiversity both damage human health, and they are interlinked. That’s why we must consider them together and declare a global health emergency.

Resolution On Indigenous Peoples’ Health Is A Landmark Moment

June 16, 2023 People's Health Dispatch, People's Dispatch. , , ,
During the 76th World Health Assembly, members of the World Health Organization (WHO) adopted an unprecedented resolution on the health of Indigenous peoples. The drafting process of the resolution was primarily driven by Brazil, with support from other countries in Latin America. The adoption of the resolution could pave the way for combating the health inequities that Indigenous communities have been exposed to for centuries, and open the doors to greater participation from Indigenous movements. Mariana Lopes Simões, who took part in the World Health Assembly as part of the People’s Health Movement’s WHO Watch team, spoke to Ricardo Weibe Nascimento Costa, Vice-minister for the Health of Indigenous Peoples in Brazil, on the significance of this step.

How Tedros Violated UN Rules To Advance TPLF Interests In Ethiopia

January 24, 2022 Ann Garrison And Simon Tesfamariam, The Grayzone. , , ,
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, World Health Organization (WHO) Secretary-General and overseer of the UN’s global coronavirus response, has established a shadow relief operation that sidesteps the authority of Ethiopia’s sovereign government and directly coordinates with his political allies in the country’s civil war. The alleged actions by Tedros, which have come to light through leaked audio conversations of UN workers, constitute a violation of UN code, which stipulates staff maintain neutrality and refrain from intervening in the affairs of member states. A participant in the leaked discussion also states that Tedros tried to replace the UN’s top coordinator in Ethiopia with someone willing to advance his political objectives.

Corporate Multilateralism Deals More Blows To Right To Health

January 22, 2022 People's Dispatch. , , ,
It is no news that transnational corporations have effectively infiltrated institutions such as the United Nations (UN) and the World Health Organization (WHO). Still, according to a new report published by the People’s Working Group on Multistakeholderism (PWGM), their influence has now edged towards a breaking point. The Transnational Institute (TNI), the People’s Health Movement (PHM), Public Services International (PSI), and other organizations members of the working group have warned that surpassing this point will make it even more difficult to reclaim power from corporations, and that will have an effect on all aspects of people’s lives. The original concept of multilateralism refers to the collective responsibility of countries’ governments to collaboratively take decisions important for the future of the world.

Study: Nearly 2 Million Workers Die From Work-Related Issues Yearly

September 25, 2021 Shannon Jones, WSWS. , ,
The WHO/ILO Joint Estimates of the Work-Related Burden of Disease and Injury, 2000-2016, conducted before the outbreak of the global COVID-19 pandemic, gives a glimpse of the terrible toll taken on the international working class by the insatiable profit drive of the corporations. Globally, 34.3 out of every 100,000 people over age 15 die each year from work-related causes. The WHO/ILO study was compiled using strict statistical standards with the collaboration of more than 220 experts from 35 countries. It considers risk factors, including exposure to carcinogens, air pollution, workplace injuries and long working hours. It concluded that long work hours, 55 or more per week, was the largest single contributor to worker mortality, accounting for 750,000 deaths annually.

Corporate Media Politicize WHO Investigation To Vilify China

August 26, 2021 Joshua Cho, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting. , , ,
FAIR (10/6/20, 6/28/21) has previously critiqued Western news media’s credulous coverage of evidence-free “lab leak” speculations. One key factor in spreading suspicion that the coronavirus might have escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) is media’s early and ongoing politicization of the World Health Organization’s investigation into the pandemic’s origins. Much of this politicization weaponizes Orientalist tropes about China being especially, perhaps genetically, untrustworthy—the sort of people who would unleash Covid-19 on the world. While no new evidence has emerged suggesting that the virus emerged from the WIV, many more Americans now believe it did. A Politico/Harvard poll in July, following an increase of uncritical Western media coverage on the lab leak theory, found that 52% of US adults now believe Covid-19 leaked from a lab, up from 29% in March 2020.

China Has Every Right To Reject WHO’s Embrace Of Lab Leak Theory

July 24, 2021 Danny Haiphong, CGTN. , , ,
Deputy of the National Health Commission Zeng Yixin asserted that China will not follow the World Health Organization's (WHO) suggested plan to focus second phase research into the origins of COVID-19 on the lab leak theory. The remarks came at a press briefing held on July 22. Outlets such as CNN and Reuters reported on the development with a strong negative bias. Each report appeared to conclude that China was shirking its commitments to the international effort to uncover COVID-19's origins.

World Health Assembly 74: One year into the pandemic

June 1, 2021 WHO Watch Team, People's Dispatch. , , ,
One year into the pandemic, the World Health Assembly is holding its annual meeting. The continued financial challenges loomed over delegates as they discussed the possibility of a Pandemic Treaty, local production of medicines, and WHO’s COVID-19 response

COVID-19: The World Is At A Critical Juncture

October 24, 2020 Benjamin Mateus, WSWS. , , ,
The fall and winter surge of COVID-19 cases, as predicted, has begun. The number of cases across North America and Europe is rising exponentially in some regions. There have been more than 42.4 million cases of COVID-19 globally, with 1.14 million deaths thus far. On Friday, the number of daily new cases reached an unprecedented 500,000-plus new infections. Global deaths have consistently tracked above 6,000 four days running. At the World Health Organization Friday press briefing on the COVID-19 pandemic, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus ominously warned...

With US Support, Taiwan Planted Deception About Warning WHO Of COVID19

July 20, 2020 By Ajit Singh, The Grayzone. , , ,
The Taiwanese government has claimed that it provided early warning to the World Health Organization (WHO) at the end of December about the novel coronavirus and the risk of human-to-human transmission but was ignored due to pressure from China. This claim has been paraded by Taiwanese authorities and the Donald Trump administration in order to slam the WHO as beholden to Chinese interests and advance the cause of Taiwanese separatism, pushing for Taiwan to be granted membership to the WHO independent of China. However, there is no evidence any such warning was ever issued by Taiwan to the WHO. The confidential communications which were first leaked by Taiwanese authorities, and then confirmed by the WHO, make it clear that Taiwan did not provide any alert or insight with regard to the novel coronavirus. The dishonest claims by Taipei and Washington have been advanced as part of broader, cynical efforts to deflect blame onto the WHO and Chinese government for the coronavirus outbreak. 

Beijing Sees Trump’s Hand And Won’t Fold

May 31, 2020 Pepe Escobar, Asia Times. , , ,
Stranger things have happened. Everyone was expecting US President Donald Trump to go nuclear by de facto sanctioning China to death over Hong Kong. In an environment where Twitter and the President of the United States are now engaged in open warfare, the rule is that there are no rules anymore. So in the end, what was announced against China amounted to an anti-climax. The US government, as it stands, is terminating its relationship with the World Health Organization (WHO). The geopolitical repercussions are immense and that will take time to sink in.

World Leaders Kick Off Initiative To Fight Coronavirus Without US

April 25, 2020 Joseph Guzman, The Hill. , , ,
The World Health Organization (WHO) has launched an initiative in collaboration with world leaders to accelerate the development of tests, drugs and vaccines against the coronavirus and share them around the world, without the involvement of the United States.  WHO on Friday launched the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator during a video news conference with world leaders, among those who joined the conference included France President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Leaders from Asia, the Middle East and the Americas also joined the conference, but a spokesman for the U.S. mission in Geneva told Reuters the U.S. would not be involved. “There will be no U.S. official participation,” the spokesman told Reuters. 

What Trump’s Funding Cuts To WHO Mean For World

April 19, 2020 By Adam Kamradt-Scott, Consortium News. , , ,
US President Donald Trump has announced the U.S. is cutting its funding to the World Health Organisation (WHO) – a decision that will have major implications for the global health response to the coronavirus pandemic. The U.S. contributes more than $400 million to the WHO per year, though it is already $200 million in arrears. It is the organization’s largest donor and gives about 10 times what China does per year. Trump has accused the organization of mishandling and covering up the initial spread of Covid-19 in China, and of generally failing to take a harsher stance toward China. What will Trump’s decision to cut funding mean for the organization?

Trump Threatens To Suspend Resources To The World Health Organization

April 12, 2020 David Brooks, La Jornada, translation Resumen Latinoamericano, North America bureau. , , ,
Donald Trump accused the World Health Organization (WHO) of what he is accused of and lambasted independent federal inspectors who dare not submit to his official line as further evidence emerged that the White House had known of the potential severity of the pandemic since late January without acting, with consequences more than visible today in this city and across the country. Trump, in his almost daily briefing, continued his practice of holding others accountable for almost any problem he faces, and this time it was the World Health Organization – the world’s largest multilateral public health organization in the midst of a pandemic. Trump threatened to suspend the U.S. contribution to the WHO, because they “failed” to warn of the pandemic, and “were wrong,” and continued to accuse them of “not seeing” the beginning, and “not reporting” it – all of which is false.
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