The World Health Organization has defended its handling of the Corona virus pandemic.

The W H O has been sharply criticized by the United States and will be the subject of an independent inquiry.

His W H O chief doctor Tadros.

I thank member states for adopting the resolution, which calls for an independent and comprehensive evaluation off the international response, including, but not limited to wh is performance.

As I said yesterday, I will initiate such an evaluation at the earliest appropriate.

Well, the U.

S has been a harsh critic of the WH show.

In the past 24 hours, President Trump has escalated his attack on the world health body, threatening to permanently cut all funding over its response to the pandemic.

He tweeted this letter, accusing the W H.

O of failing to share information and being too soft on China where the virus originated, and he gave the W.

H.

O a deadline of 30 days to reform.

In the past hour, Donald Trump has repeated that ultimate and have a listen to this letter is a very detailed long letter, but basically they have to clean up their act.

They have to do a better job.

They have to be much more fair to other countries, including the United States.

So we're not gonna be involved with them anymore.

We're doing a separate way.

Okay, Well, the W H O.

Has responded.

Saying is considering the contents of the letter.

China, though, had much stronger words for the president.

This is what they had to say.

Make what the U.

S.

Tries to use China as an issue to shirk responsibility on bargain over its international obligations to the W H.

O.

This is a miscalculation on the U.

S.

Has picked the wrong target.

Donald Trump's four page letter laid out the plans the results of his recent probe the administration carried out into the World Health Organization's response to the pandemic.

We've heard some of the allegations from the president before.

There is one that's a regular theme.

The wh show, he said, felt adequately obtain vet and share information in a timely and transparent fashion.

While unpacking that forces.

Chris Morris from the BBC is reality check.

This is talking about the early phase of the outbreak, really know what the W.

H.

O says it was informed by China of a new moughniyah of unknown cause in the 31st of December last year.

Within a few days, it had put out an official statement asking for more information from China on.

By the 20th and 21st of January, it sent a team to Wuhan to investigate.

By the end of the month, it declared a global public health emergency.

Now you can argue that perhaps it could have acted quicker, but you can certainly make their arguments against many governments around the world around the world as well, including that of the United States on I think the key point in this the crucial point is that the W.

H O doesn't have the power toe force or compel any government to do anything, including handing over information.

And it seems like in the absence of that power, it decided, rightly or wrongly, that by praising China publicly, that would be the best way to get what is overstates.

Still, a secretive society to cooperate well.

Last month, Donald Trump suspended payments to the W H O for 60 days.

His critics were quick to call it a distraction from his own handling of the pandemic.

Whatever the motive, it came as a big blow to the W H O.

The U.

S is the largest single donor, pledging $893 million to its budget.

And according to The Washington Post, about $400 million of that money was halted when payments were suspended back in April.

While the paper reports in the same month, China committed an extra $30 million to the W.

H O.

So is there any reason to doubt the independence off the world health body?

His Chris again, Obviously, the U.

S.

Is one of the largest funders of the W H O, but it provides 15% So it's another majority of the money.

There's also substantial contributions from the UK from Germany and from a private organization that the Gates Foundation, which has quite a lot of money to push around, is the W H o pro Chinese.

Certainly China is very active in the organization on the W.

H.

O is aware of that and sensitive to it.

Perhaps its critics would certainly say oversensitive.

It's it's It finds it difficult dealing with Taiwan.

Taiwan is not a member of the W H O.

Because it's not a member of the United Nations.

And so that's a subject I think of focus of criticism of the W H.

O as well.

But some of the things that Donald Trump said in his recent letter or to the letter yesterday to the W H.

O certainly aren't correct.

For example, there's a tweet we've seen today from the editor of The Lancet, Richard Horton, saying, Dear President Trump, you cite the Lancet in your attack on the W h o.

Please let me correct the record.

The Lancet did not publish any report in early December 2019 about a virus spreading in Wuhan, which is what the Trump letter says.

The first report we published were from Chinese scientists on the 24th of January.

I think when you talk to all expert, the overwhelming majority of scientists say, by all means criticise the W H o.

I mean that there they are.

They certainly know shouldn't be avoiding criticism.

But the idea of cutting off funding for the only truly global public health body we have in the middle of a global pandemic.

Any expert will tell you that's dangerous.

Well, All of this comes as members of the W H O agree to adopt a resolution by the U and Australia for an investigation into the crisis.

So what shape and form will that inquiry take?

His Our global health correspondent.

Chill it may Zinder.

So this was a resolution that, as you say, was tabled by the you on Australia.

It has bean accepted by all of the member states.

At least that was the consensus at this meeting over last couple of days of the World Health Assembly will see in the next few days whether certain countries might opt out of certain parts of it.

But essentially, it's going to investigate how this pandemic started, how it was able to spiral out of control so quickly.

One of the key questions will be what was the animals source of this virus?

We understand that it came from a fish market, an animal market in Wuhan.

We don't know what the animal sources that that is something that will be looked into as well.

It was very carefully worded.

These resolutions have to be agreed by consensus by 194 member states, and it didn't specify investigating any particular country did specify investigating the World Health Organization.

But it also said that it will also look at the international response.

Will look at a different countries response from sort sure China will come up in that as well.

Yeah, well, you and I have been talking about scrutiny and which countries that would be leveled out.

We're talking to having that conversation yesterday, weren't we?

Are.

I mean, I'm wondering how much scrutiny those countries will be open to in particular China when they move forward with this.

I think it probably does, although again, China wasn't specifically mentioned in this resolution.

But if you are looking at how these pandemic started, what happened in those early days?

And there has been criticism not just from the world health organized, not just on the US, I should say towards the World Health Organization, but Australia and other countries as well, saying they were too close to China, that China wasn't transparent at the beginning and yet the W.

H.

O did continue to praise it.

I think there will be some investigation into that as well, and certainly the U.

S.

Will be lobbying behind the scenes very hard for that to be part of this investigation.

But broadly speaking along the country's it was speaking at the World Health Assembly over the last couple of days have talked about the importance of solidarity.

It's been said again and again that one country alone cannot beat this.

Countries have to come together and work together to beat this.

Otherwise, it's simply not going to go away s so that is something that will be reinforced.

I think it's part of this investigation that blaming pointing fingers It doesn't actually help the pandemic now.

But clearly what needs to happen is look a how this pandemic was dealt with at the beginning to make sure that lessons can be learned so it doesn't happen again.

One of virus like this does hit again, which it inevitably will.

Chittum is into their now let's move on to another big story that's been developing out of the United States.

Last night, Donald Trump shocked health experts when he said he'd been taken an unproven drug hydroxy claure Quinn to protect himself against Corona virus, even though officials warned it may be unsafe and caused harmful side effects well Despite the dangers, the president has again been defending his use of the drug.

If you look at some of the reports that came out from Italy that came out from France, that came out from other, a lot of our frontline workers take it because it possibly and I think it does.

But, you know, people are gonna have to make up their own mind.

Plus, it doesn't hurt people.

It's been out on the market for 60 or 65 years for malaria, Lupus and other things.

Uh, I think it gives you an additional level of safety, but you can ask.

Many doctors are in favor of it.

Many frontline workers won't go there unless they have the hydroxy.

And so again, this is an individual decision to make.

But it's had a great reputation, and if it was somebody else other than May, people would say GS in that Smart or president.

Trump revealed he was taking the anti malaria drugs he was hosting a business event on Monday, with more his catty came Washington Yesterday, the stock market, the Dow Jones Industrial, rose 900 points, and the event at which he was speaking was meant to be an event celebrating the reopening of the American economy and talking about the economic good news.

And then the president in the middle of that event revealed with some delight, saying he was kind of couldn't wait to see the look in the reporter's eyes that he had been taking hydroxy claure Quran for a week and 1/2.

And, of course, that blue.

All of the other news about the economy out of the water and the only thing that people talked about then for the rest of the evening on cable television, on the television news networks here with a front page was the fact that the president is taking hydroxy Clara Quinn.

So if it was meant to be a sort of deliberate strategy to distract from things like the fact that America now has 90,000 deaths, it was also distracting from what was meant to be.

A moment of good news about the American economy says it's kind of hard to determine whether there was a deliberate political strategy surrounding this, and it's also hard to determine when the president says, as he just did just now, you just played that clip many doctors are taking at many frontline workers have taken that many people have told him.

This president sometimes has a tendency to say many people have told me or many people are doing this without actually naming specifics and most of the doctors.

In fact, all of the doctors that I've heard across television here in the United States today have said that this is a bad idea or not a good idea, certainly not one that they would recommend to their patients.