US President Donald Trump in his recent letter to the World Health Organization made "factually inaccurate" statements about the timing of reports on the spread of the novel coronavirus, the medical journal the Lancet said in a statement on Tuesday
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 19th May, 2020) US President Donald Trump in his recent letter to the World Health Organization made "factually inaccurate" statements about the timing of reports on the spread of the novel coronavirus, the medical journal the Lancet said in a statement on Tuesday.
Trump on Monday in a letter to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus threatened to halt US funding to the WHO because it "consistently ignored credible reports of the virus spreading in Wuhan in early December 2019 or even earlier, including reports from the Lancet medical journal."
But The Lancet in its statement on Tuesday firmly denied Trump's allegation, saying no such reports appeared in its publication until late January at the earliest.
"This statement is factually incorrect. The Lancet published no report in December, 2019, referring to a virus or outbreak in Wuhan or anywhere else in China," the journal said in a statement published on Twitter.
The Lancet instead published its first reports related to the coronavirus on January 24, 2020, the statement added.
"The allegations leveled against the WHO in President Trump's letter are serious and damaging to efforts to strengthen international cooperation to control this pandemic," the statement said. "It is essential that any review of the global reopening is based on a factually accurate account of what took place in December and January."
Trump in his letter criticized what he called the WHO's "missteps" and threatened to halt US funding to the organization within 30 days unless it commits to major improvements.
