On December 31, 2019, the Chinese authorities contacted the WHO office in China: a case of pneumonia of unknown cause was detected in the city of Wuhan, in the central province of Hubei.
Thirteen months later, the virus triggered a global pandemic causing the deaths of more than 2,000,000 people.
While governments are trying, as best they can, to stem the spread of the virus with restrictive measures, the WHO is starting a field investigation in China into the appearance of Covid-19, the origin of which remains to be seen. this day unknown.
An opportunity to review the role of the UN agency and its management of a year of unprecedented health crisis.
WHO, what is it?
Created in 1945, the World Health Organization is a UN agency whose goal is to promote public health and access to healthcare.
The organization employs 7,000 people through six regional branches and 150 country offices: doctors, scientists, epidemiologists, statisticians but also experts in economics, finance and even emergency relief.
The agency has 192 member countries around the world, whose representatives sit on the World Health Assembly, and which finance its activity through fixed contributions.
In addition, there are voluntary contributions paid by countries that so wish as well as private groups.
For the period 2020-2021, the organization's budget amounts to $ 5.8 million with, among its main contributors, the United States, China, the European Union or even the Bill and Melinda Foundation. Gates.
Since July 1, 2017, WHO has been headed by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Ethiopian biologist and former Minister of Health, who became the institution's first African director general.
Role in the health crisis
Informed as soon as the first official case appeared, WHO has since played a key role at all levels of the health crisis.
In addition to investigating the characteristics of the virus, its contagiousness as well as its dangerousness, the UN agency issues recommendations to States, based on scientific opinions of international researchers that it consults and validates.
If its recommendations are above all of a health nature (distancing measures, wearing a mask, vaccines, treatment), it also takes a position on measures of economic significance: closing borders, confinement, etc.
On January 30, 2020, while there are 98 cases of Covid-19 around the world and still no deaths, the WHO declares a public health emergency of international concern to fight the Covid-19 epidemic.
“Some considered that this decision was a little late, but with hindsight we see that it was not only appropriate, but that it made it possible to considerably speed up the processes”, estimates Marc Gastellu-Etchegorry, epidemiologist at Médecins sans Frontières and former technical expert at WHO headquarters in Geneva, contacted by France 24. “If the laboratories have been able to develop vaccines in record time, it is mainly because the WHO has alerted and taken the measure of the severity of the crisis.
His word has an enormous influence because it is a pledge of credibility for States ”.
At the time, this decision was motivated by “the possibility that the virus could spread to other countries with more fragile health systems” and in particular in Africa.
But contrary to forecasts, the continent will be relatively spared and it is Europe that will become the epicenter of the epidemic.
“The fears of the WHO were perfectly legitimate and vigilance on the African continent is still required,” nevertheless judges Marc Gastellu-Etchegorry.
“Some countries like South Africa, Morocco or Egypt are badly affected.
Others like Uganda have taken extremely effective barrier measures, and again WHO has played its part ”.
A lack of independence from China?
Overwhelmed by the pandemic he had until then preferred to minimize, former US President Donald Trump announced on May 29 to end the relationship between his country and the World Health Organization, judging that it was acting in the pay of China.
A grip all the more scandalous as Beijing "pays only 40 million dollars a year", compared to "450 million dollars" of American financing, indignant the president then.
“The decision to leave the WHO was absurd and Donald Trump's accusations very caricature.
However, it is true that the institution sometimes finds it difficult to take positions that go against the States ”, points out Marc Gastellu-Etchegorry.
“It must be understood that the governing bodies are the countries.
However, the latter sometimes have conflicting interests and try to manipulate the WHO.
This is why its independence is crucial.
Public health must be its only compass.
However, if the WHO provides a lot of communication work around its decisions, the decision-making process remains too complicated and opaque ”, he judges.
While the experts begin their mission in Wuhan on the origin of Covid-19, the Chinese government made it clear, Friday, January 29, that this visit is part of scientific cooperation and in no way constitutes “a investigation".
“Of course, experts are walking on eggshells in China, no country wants to be implicated in an international pandemic, and especially not China, which has great progress to make in terms of transparency”, quips Marc Gastellu-Etchegorry. .
“But tracing the origin of the virus as precisely as possible can help address the problem at the root.
This is crucial, as is access to the vaccine and research into treatments.
However, in these areas, WHO still has a lot of work to do, ”he concludes.
Little information has filtered out about the program of the experts' mission to China, which is to last several weeks.
From Geneva, Michael Ryan, the director of emergency operations of the WHO, stressed on Friday the difficulty of the operation, believing that several visits could be necessary to determine the origins of the pandemic.
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