Australia says all WHO members should support a proposed coronavirus inquiry
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All member nations of the World Health Organization (WHO) should support a proposed independent review into the coronavirus pandemic, Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Thursday, further threatening strained ties with China.
Australia has become one of Beijing’s most forceful critics over the handling of the spread of the coronavirus, with Morrison urging several world leaders to support an international inquiry into its origins and spread.
Beijing has fiercely rejected calls for an inquiry, describing the efforts as U.S.-led propaganda against China.
But Morrison said all members of the WHO should be obliged to participate in a review.
“If you’re going to be a member of a club like the World Health Organization, there should be responsibilities and obligations attached to that,” Morrison told reporters in Canberra.
“We’d like the world to be safer when it comes to viruses… I would hope that any other nation, be it China or anyone else, would share that objective.”
The COVID-19 outbreak originated in China and has since spread to infect some 2.3 million people globally and killed nearly 160,000, according to Reuters calculations.
