"I have great respect for Bill Gates and his work in the public health arena. If someone like Bill Gates were in charge of the WHO I would gladly support increased funding, but I have lost all confidence in the current WHO leadership and capabilities", Graham said on Wednesday.
The senator backed US President Donald Trump’s decision to block funding for global health agency in a separate tweet, citing what he called overwhelming evidence of pro-China bias in the WHO.
I have great respect for @BillGates and his work in the public health arena.
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) April 15, 2020
If someone like Bill Gates were in charge of the WHO I would gladly support increased funding, but I have lost all confidence in the current WHO leadership and capabilities.
Graham did not cite WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus by name, but critics have accused Ghebreyesus of acting as a proxy for China and delaying a WHO declaration of a public health emergency by accepting Beijing’s claims that the novel coronavirus was not spread by human-to-human contact prior to late January 2020. By that time, the pandemic had exploded in China and begun spreading globally.
Ghebreyesus has stressed the urgency of battling the novel coronavirus pandemic and waiting until the conflagration is under control before examining his agency’s performance. However, Trump this week went ahead and halted US funding for the agency for 60-to-90 days while his administration conducts its own investigation.
