From the article:
“…Amanda Glassman, the executive vice-president and senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, said a deeper problem is the WHO’s low budget and relatively toothless structure. Unlike the nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, it has no redress against governments that do not cooperate.
‘It operates in countries at the pleasure and permission of the host country governments. So in the case of China, to be allowed to enter China, it was a negotiation to get there,’ Glassman said.
She added that the real challenge for the WHO has yet come, when the pandemic really hits poorer countries with fragile, underfunded health services, who rely heavily on the organisation.
Unlike the Ebola outbreak in 2014, the US will not be there to take the lead, and it will be up to the WHO to coordinate scarce resources and expertise.
‘Can they do that in 40 countries at once?’ Glassman asked. ‘That is the part that remains to be tested…’”
