Is WHO mishandling the coronavirus response?
Global health agency warns of ‘narrowing’ window to contain outbreak.
More and more countries are reporting cases of the new coronavirus, officially known as COVID-19.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is worried that some of the new infections appear to have no direct link to China, where the outbreak was first reported in December.
New deaths have been reported in Iran and Italy, and the number of infected people has doubled in South Korea.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is warning the window of opportunity to contain the virus globally is narrowing.
The United Nations’s health agency has been criticised for being slow to act on this epidemic, as well as previous health crises.
Should WHO change its approach?
Presenter: Nastasya Tay
Guests:
Margaret Harris – Spokeswoman for WHO
Peter Hotez – Dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine
Muhammad Munir – Lecturer in biomedicine at Lancaster University