18, May 2020
WHO chief Tedros in the eye of the storm 0
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the first African to head the World Health Organization, faces the towering challenge of coordinating a global pandemic response increasingly complicated by US-China tensions.
The former Ethiopian minister of health and foreign affairs finds himself at the heart of global efforts to rein in the novel coronavirus, which has now killed more than 300,000 people and infected close to five million.
On Monday, Tedros opens the UN health agency’s main annual event, the World Health Assembly, which due to the pandemic will be held virtually and has been trimmed from the usual three weeks to just two days.
Amid the COVID-19 outbreak, Tedros said the event would be “one of the most important (WHAs) since we were founded in 1948”.
Countries hope to adopt by consensus a resolution urging a joint response to the crisis, but the efforts have been clouded by steadily deteriorating relations between the world’s two largest economies.
Trump last week threatened to cut ties with China, where the outbreak began late last year, over its role in the spread of COVID-19, and has repeatedly made unproven allegations that the virus originated in a Chinese lab.
– Biggest challenge –
The US president has also ramped up criticism of Tedros and WHO, accusing them of being too close to China and mismanaging the pandemic response.
And last month, Trump announced that Washington, the biggest contributor to the UN health agency, would suspend its funding.
The pandemic, combined with the threat of lost US funding, clearly constitutes the biggest challenge to date in the WHO director-general’s three-year tenure.
But Tedros, 55, a malaria specialist with degrees from Britain in public health and immunology, and the first person ever elected to the helm of the WHO, should have the legitimacy and strong support to weather the storm.
Tedros is renowned for his warmth and a tendency to call everyone from colleagues to world leaders “brother” or “sister”, setting him apart from the famously cool persona of his appointed predecessor, Margaret Chan of China.
And his handling of the crisis has drawn widespread praise.
“Tedros is the best director general that I have worked with, perhaps since Gro Brundtland,” renowned US epidemiologist Larry Brilliant told AFP, referring to the former Norwegian prime minister who served as WHO chief from 1998 to 2003.
“He is an incredibly smart, open, honest, science-based man.”
– ‘Politicising’ the pandemic –
While he always seems to have a smile lurking under his trimmed moustache, Tedros has also revealed a fiery side.
After a hefty barrage of criticism from Trump last month, Tedros warned that “if you don’t want many more body-bags then you refrain from politicising” the pandemic.
During that virtual briefing on April 8, Tedros also revealed that for months he had faced a virulent campaign of abuse against him, including racist comments and death threats.
“I don’t give a damn… I am proud of being black or proud of being negro,” he said.
Tedros has also come under increasing pressure over Taiwan, which at the behest of China has been excluded from the WHO and other international bodies, amid growing calls for it to be granted access to the WHA.
Taiwan has, like Trump, harshly criticised the UN agency and its chief for being too willing to believe Beijing and praise its handling of the outbreak.
On social media meanwhile, a battle is raging between the pro- and anti-Tedros camps. The WHO chief himself has joined the virtual fight, retweeting messages of support from a range of African leaders, other political actors and scientists.
– ‘Firm, courageous’ –
“I’ve known Dr Tedros for 27 years… He is a man of great principle, and his calm but firm, courageous leadership of WHO during this terrible COVID-19 pandemic is exactly what the world needs right now,” tweeted Laura Hammond, a University of London professor.
He also has a knack for diplomacy.
During the 2017 election, he highlighted his drive as health minister to expand basic healthcare by building thousands of clinics and boosting community-based health services, and vowed to give the WHO a similar overhaul, with an emphasis on global health coverage.
When he took over, the organisation was undergoing far-reaching reforms after mismanaging the initial response to the Ebola outbreak in west Africa, which killed more than 11,300 people between 2013 and 2016.
But just a few months into his tenure, he created a scandal by appointing Zimbabwe’s then-president Robert Mugabe as a WHO goodwill ambassador. He was forced to backtrack.
That gaffe however has largely been forgotten, as the WHO under Tedros has scaled up emergency response capabilities and astutely responded to two new Ebola outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Source: AFP
19, May 2020
Cameroon Doctors Ask for Protection as Attacks by COVID Carriers Increase 0
Medical staff in Cameroon are asking for additional security at hospitals following a series of attacks by people upset that they or their loved ones were diagnosed with the coronavirus. Cameroon so far has 3,300 confirmed cases of the virus with 147 deaths.
Gervais Gabriel Atedjoe, secretary general of Cameroon’s National Medical Council, said attacks on hospitals, especially health care workers, are increasing by the day.
Speaking by phone from the coastal city of Douala, Atedjoe said health workers are being attacked by people who either contest tests showing them positive for COVID-19, or reject medical reports that their relatives died of coronavirus.
He said the National Medical Council of Cameroon is scandalized and wants to state categorically that it is totally inadmissable to attack medical staff members who are simply carrying out their duties of saving lives. He said they are asking the government to increase protection at hospitals and to educate civilians to desist from attacking health workers because within the past three weeks, medical doctors, nurses and laboratory technicians have been attacked on a daily basis.
The Medical Council reports attacks in seven hospitals since Thursday. Six workers sustained injuries and are being treated, and eight others sustained minor injuries.
In the most extreme attacks, doctors said that last week, angry crowds exhumed at least four corpses of people buried after they died of COVID-19 in the cities of Douala and Bafoussam to stop the spread of the killer virus.
The exhumers said they wanted to give the bodies a proper burial.
Some people wear masks as they walk by the entrance to the Yaounde General Hospital in Yaounde on March 6, 2020 as Cameroon has…
Awah Fonka, governor of Cameroon’s Western Region where Bafoussam is found, said health workers who tried to stop the crowds were attacked and beaten.
Fonka, speaking via a messaging app from Bafoussam, said the lives of the health workers were saved only when the police arrived and dispersed the mobs. Police and health care workers then reclaimed and reburied the bodies.
“It is unbelievable, unacceptable that a medical doctor or medical personnel should be putting up a fight over a corpse with a family. They [the crowds] should understand that these people [the health care workers] are coming to help so that they should not be infected,” said the governor.
Cameroon’s Health Minister Manaouda Malachie has condemned the attacks and said he is calling on all Cameroonians to accept the reality that COVID-19 exists and is killing people.
Speaking on Cameroon state radio CRTV, he said measures have been taken to increase security at hospitals.
He said President Paul Biya has asked him to encourage and tell all health workers that he is aware of the challenges they face and has given instructions to the government to take necessary measures to protect them. Manaouda says Biya and his government are very much appreciative and will never abandon Cameroon medical staff members in their efforts to conquer COVID-19.
On May 1st, Cameroon eased restrictions put in place to curb COVID-19. The government is still asking people to protect themselves by washing their hands regularly and keeping a distance of a least a meter and a half from people.
It has also warned people against believing that COVID-19 has been conquered, or even worse, doesn’t exist.
Source: VOA