Rubio says WHO was ‘a little late’ on identifying Ebola outbreak
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US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the WHO was late to identifying the deadly outbreak.
PHOTO: KENNY HOLSTON/NYTIMES
WASHINGTON – US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on May 19 that the World Health Organization, the UN body which President Donald Trump stopped funding, was late in identifying a deadly outbreak of Ebola.
Asked by reporters how the United States would respond to the virus outbreak, Mr Rubio said: “The lead is obviously going to be CDC (the Centers for Disease Control) and the World Health Organization, which was a little late to identify this thing unfortunately.”
Mr Trump in one of his first acts on returning to office in 2025 set in motion a US withdrawal from the WHO, which he attacked bitterly over its response to Covid.
The global pandemic heavily affected his first administration in the months before he lost the 2020 election to Mr Joe Biden.
The WHO has been forced to cut back due to the end of funding by the United States, which had been the most generous contributor with more than US$1 billion (S$1.28 billion) allocated annually under Mr Biden.
Asked to explain why Mr Rubio believed that the WHO was late, another senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it took the UN body 10 days to confirm the Ebola outbreak.
“We are now four days into our response; we could have been 14,” the official said.
The WHO “failed now numerous times. Obviously, everyone is well familiar with what they did, covering up the Covid-19 pandemic for the Chinese Communist Party,” the official said.
The WHO contests US charges that it went too easy on China or allowed it to hide the Covid outbreak, saying that it needs to cooperate with all countries.
Mr Trump has drastically slashed US foreign assistance, dismantling the US Agency for International Development, which was the world’s largest governmental aid provider, saying that the United States should more narrowly pursue its own interests.
The State Department announced on May 19 that it would fund up to 50 Ebola treatment centers in the Democratic Republic of Congo or Uganda through some US$13 million in initial US funding.
Mr Rubio said that it was difficult to reach affected areas as they were in a “hard-to-get-to place in a war-torn country, unfortunately”.
The State Department in a statement said that the United States “has an ironclad commitment to ensuring this response is fully resourced, rapid, and cooperative between key global health and humanitarian partners”.
The WHO earlier on May 19 said that it was concerned about the “scale and speed” of the Ebola outbreak that DR Congo authorities say has caused 136 suspected deaths. AFP
