Coronavirus: China’s influence on World Health under fire again

China’s influence on the World Health Organisation has again been called into question, as a senior adviser refused to acknowledge Taiwan and its handling of the coronavirus in a bizarre interview.

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China’s influence on the World Health Organisation was again called into question, as a senior adviser refused to acknowledge Taiwan and its handling of the coronavirus in a bizarre interview.

Canadian physician Dr. Bruce Aylward, an aide to WHO director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom,

sidestepped questions about the country — which China does not recognise — in a Skype chat with Hong Kong’s RTHK news outlet.

The clip has been viewed more than 5 million times online.

A medical worker gets a swab sample for a COVID-19 test in Wuhan, in China's central Hubei province. Picture: AFP

In the call, Dr Aylward is asked if Taiwan, which has experienced only two deaths and 298 coronavirus cases, despite being on China’s doorstep, should become a member of the WHO.

He appears to not hear the question, and later hangs up.

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear your question,” he said before asking to move to another question.

On a follow-up call when asked about Taiwan and its successful response to the outbreak, Dr Aylward replied: “We’ve already talked about China.

“And you know, when you look across all the different areas of China, they’ve actually all done quite a good job.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping visits the Chuanshan port area of the Ningbo-Zhoushan Port in east China's Zhejiang Province. Authorities in China are working to restart its industries as number of new coronavirus cases and deaths fall in the country. Picture: AP

The interview prompted commentary online on the extent of Beijing’s power over the WHO.

It comes as senior UK government minister Michael Gove questioned whether China had been open about the full scale of the crisis.

“It was the case … [that] the first case of coronavirus in China was established in December of last year, but it was also the case that some of the reporting from China was not clear about the scale, the nature, the infectiousness of this,” he said on the BBC.

The WHO told News Corp Australia that Dr Aylward avoided the question because he was talking only about COVID-19, not international politics.

“In a recent interview, the WHO official who headed the joint international mission to China, did not answer a question on Taiwan’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak,” a spokesman said.

“The question of Taiwanese membership in WHO is up to WHO Member States, not WHO staff.

“However, WHO is working closely with all health authorities who are facing the current coronavirus pandemic, including Taiwanese health experts.”

A medical worker takes a swab sample from a person to be tested for the COVID-19 novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China's central Hubei province. Picture: AFP

The WHO had earlier told News Corp Australia that China had outlined the blueprint for how to battle coronavirus, but warned the war was far from over.

Chinese authorities will continue to enforce some elements of lockdowns as it braces for a second wave of infections.

China has been accused of minimising the reported number of deaths there, with the official tally at 3299.

But local media reports suggested a spike in the order of urns for cremations in Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak.

Mourners have been forced to wait hours to get into the Hankou Funeral Home in Wuhan, waiting on widely spaced plastic chairs to collect the ashes of their loved ones.

Wuhan will be removed from lockdown gradually from April 8 but movie theatres that had reopened have now closed.

A man wearing a protective suit takes the temperature of a worker in Wuhan. Picture: AFP

A national holiday where Chinese people traditionally cleaned the graves of their relatives has been banned to avoid further infections.

International flights have also been restricted, with only diplomats allowed into the country as China fears a new wave of infection being reimported into the country.

There has been criticism of what Chinese authorities knew about the outbreak, with the first infection reported on December 8.

The WHO was alerted to the spike on December 31, 2019, and the first death was officially reported two weeks later.

A WHO spokeswoman said China had been sharing information, and made the sequence of the virus public on January 12, which helped scientists across the globe tackle the outbreak.

China, which has a tradition of control over its population through its hard line Communist regime, has had success with containing the outbreak.

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