"No time to waste": WHO reacts over Donald Trump's decision to freeze funding

Washington : A day after the US President Donald Trump announced his decision of freezing funds for the World Health Organization (WHO); its chief said that the organization is purely focused on saving lives and halting the coronavirus pandemic.

"There is no time to waste. WHO's singular focus is on working to serve all people to save lives and stop the COVID-19 pandemic," director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Twitter following Trump's decision.

Trump said Tuesday he was freezing the funding pending a review into the UN health agency's "role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus", adding: "everybody knows what's going on there".

The US is one of the biggest contributors in terms of funds to the WHO.

Tedros tweeted the WHO's updated strategic preparedness and response plan for dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, which was released on Tuesday.

"The updated WHO global COVID-19 strategy guides the public health response at national and subnational levels, including practical guidance for strategic action, tailored to the local context," he said.

"One of the main things we've learned in the past months about COVID-19 is that the faster all cases are found, tested, isolated and cared for, the harder we make it for the virus to spread.

"This principle will save lives and mitigate the economic impact of the pandemic."