(Geneva) The WHO on Thursday accused Elon Musk, without naming him, of spreading “fake news” after a tweet from the multi-billionaire calling on countries “not to cede their authority” in the face of the draft international agreement aimed at combating against pandemics.
The controversy started earlier in the day, when Elon Musk tweeted: “Countries must not cede their authority to the WHO”, in reference to ongoing discussions within the UN agency to establish a agreement to help countries better prevent and fight against pandemics.
The director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, first replied to him on Twitter: “Countries do not cede their sovereignty to the WHO”.
“The pandemic agreement is not going to change that. The agreement will help countries better protect themselves against pandemics. It will help us better protect people, whether they live in rich or poor countries,” he said.
Shortly after, the Dr Tedros returned to the subject at the start of his weekly press conference on global health issues, pointing to “misinformation” about the deal circulating on social media.
“The claim that the deal will cede power to the WHO is simply false. This is ‘fake news’,” he continued.
He assured that “countries will decide what the agreement says, and they alone”, and who “will implement the agreement in accordance with their own laws”.
And, he added, “if any politician, businessman or anyone else is confused about what the pandemic accord is and is not, we would be more than ‘happy to discuss and explain’.
At the beginning of March, the Dr Tedros had told reporters that WHO member states would soon begin negotiations on the draft agreement, aimed in particular at addressing issues of information sharing and inequalities in access to vaccines observed between rich and poor countries. developing countries in the face of COVID-19.
The agreement would also strengthen national, regional and global capacities for preparing, detecting, alerting and responding to pandemics.
He said he hoped that the negotiations could be concluded by May 2024 and called on countries “to learn the lessons of this pandemic” so as not to repeat its mistakes.
This draft agreement was born following the failure of the international community to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, the States, but also the WHO, having been accused of having acted too late and with little solidarity. .