The folly of politicising a pandemic

topic:	Good Governance
located:	USA, China
editor:	Bob Koigi

The recent scathing criticism of the World Health Organization by President Donald Trump on its lacklustre handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the veiled threat to cut U.S. funding of the organisation at the height of an unprecedented calamity exposes the dangers politicisation and finger-pointing pose to the collective pursuit of tackling global health disasters.

Trump’s gripe with the UN agency stemming from what he describes as a China-centric approach to the pandemic – despite the U.S. being the largest voluntary funder of the organisation – is off mark and a tactical move to appropriate blame elsewhere at a time when his administration has come under stinging accusation for its casual handling of COVID-19 and disregard of experts’ advice on identifying cases, isolating them and conducting contract tracing that has fanned the devastating situation the country finds itself in.

Since it was established over 70 years ago to chaperone international public health by ensuring better health for everyone, everywhere, WHO has received praise and scorn in equal measure as epidemics shape the course of mankind. It has for example been criticized for overreacting or being slow in response to disasters like Ebola. It has equally received thumbs up for its speed and transparency with which it has handled coronavirus.

Yet the institution continues to work under a tough environment, operating under low budget and a powerless structure which means it relies on the cooperation of governments and has no redress in the event of non-cooperation. This has complicated its work on data gathering, sharing and interventions. WHO now finds itself in a difficult situation as it tries to grapple with the novel pandemic and its devastating consequences. It has now been caught in the middle of the U.S.-China politics which only complicates matters.

As the coronavirus related deaths rise exponentially each day, this is the time to quarantine COVID politics and instead double efforts and funding to the health agency if, going by the words of the Secretary General, we want to reduce the number of body bags.

The coronavirus like all other viruses has no nationality and these petty politics only serve to distract the world from the core mission of defeating the pandemic.

Call to Action

Support your community during the COVID-19 pandemic!