Australia says WHO review warranted

The Australian foreign minister says she has spoken to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo about the World Health Organization and agrees the international agency needs to be reviewed, but Australia continues to support WHO's valuable work in the Pacific.
President Donald Trump has directed his administration to freeze WHO funding, claiming the agency didn't deliver adequate early reports on the coronavirus and cost the U.S. valuable response time.
Foreign Minister Marise Payne told Seven Network television today: "We share some of the concerns of the United States and I do think there are areas of the operation of WHO that absolutely require review.''
Australia had made several decisions on the coronavirus' spread based on its own health advice ahead of the WHO, Payne said.
"For example, in declaring coronavirus from our perspective as a pandemic, closing our borders, for example, in relation to travel from Wuhan, Hubei province, from mainland China very early and we were criticized by the WHO for doing that,'' Payne said.
"That said, I don't think that management issues perhaps in Geneva should have a negative impact on some of the very good work that we do in association with WHO in places like the Pacific and in Indonesia. Australia and New Zealand are currently in a very, very strong partnership with WHO in the Pacific out of their office in Suva to deliver support to the Pacific which is really, really important in the midst of a coronavirus pandemic like this and I would not like to see that thrown away.''