Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Secretary-General of the World Health Organization (WHO). Figure: Recap of WHO live broadcast (file photo)
World Health Organization (WHO) Secretary-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus visited Washington and met with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Brain McKeon today to discuss WHO finances and reforms. This year’s World Health Assembly (WHA) is approaching, and McKinney called on Tedros to allow Taiwan to participate in the WHA as an observer.
The 75th WHA will be held in Geneva from May 22 to 28. Taiwan has been invited to participate in the WHA as an observer for 8 consecutive years from 2009 to 2016. However, due to China’s suppression, Taiwan has not been awarded for 5 consecutive years since 2017. Invite to participate. On March 31, the United States and Taiwan held a high-level work conference on Taiwan’s international participation, with a special focus on Taiwan’s participation in the WHA issue. McKinney, who heads management and resources, also spoke out for Taiwan’s participation in the WHA when he met with Tedros today.
According to a summary of the meeting released by State Department spokesman Ned Price, McKinney told Tedros that the U.S. is committed to pushing the WHA to be included in Taiwan as an observer. In addition, as the source of the virus has not been determined until the outbreak of the Wuhan pneumonia, McKinney was also concerned regarding the investigation of the source of the epidemic at the meeting today, expressing the US’s commitment to this.
The Wuhan pneumonia epidemic has continued to spread in many countries for more than two years since it broke out in China. Many countries are still struggling to defeat the virus. So far, more than 490 million people have been diagnosed worldwide and more than 6.19 million people have died. A new wave of local epidemics has also broken out in Taiwan recently. , 384 new local cases and 123 imported cases were added on the 8th; there were no new deaths among the other confirmed cases.
