Brazilian President Bolsonaro threatens to exit WHO accusing it of ideological bias

Brazil’s far-rightist   President Jair Bolsonaro has said his country will quit the Geneva-based 193-member  World Health Organization after it warned his government against lifting lockdown as the spread of the coronavirus is yet to be contained in the South American nation. “I’m telling you right now, the United States left the WHO, and we’re studying that, in the future,” Bolsonaro told journalists outside the presidential palace on Friday, June 05. “Either the WHO works without ideological bias, or we leave, too. “The updated Brazilian record for daily COVID-19 fatalities pushed the county’s death toll past that of Italy late on Thursday, but Bolsonaro continues to argue for quickly lifting state isolation orders, arguing that the economic costs outweigh public health risks, says  ALJAZEERA. Latin America’s most populous nations, Brazil and Mexico, are seeing the highest rates of new infections, though the pandemic is also gathering pace in countries such as Peru, Colombia, Chile and Bolivia. More than 1.1 million Latin Americans have been infected. While most leaders have taken the pandemic more seriously than Bolsonaro, some politicians that backed strict lockdowns in March and April are pushing to open economies back up as hunger and poverty grow. In an editorial, a Brazilian daily highlighted that just 100 days had passed since Bolsonaro described the virus now “killing a Brazilian per minute” as “the little flu”. ”While you were reading this, another Brazilian died from the coronavirus,” the newspaper said. US President Donald Trump, an ideological ally of Bolsonaro, said last month that Washington would end its own relationship with the WHO, accusing the organisation of becoming a puppet of China, where the coronavirus first emerged. Bolsonaro made his move to withdraw his nation from WHO shortly before Brazil confirmed that its death toll from the coronavirus had risen above 35,000, the third-highest in the world behind the US and the United Kingdom. Brazil’s Health Ministry reported late on Thursday that confirmed cases in the country had climbed past 600,000 and 1,437 deaths had been registered within 24 hours, the third consecutive daily record. Brazil reported another 1,005 deaths on Friday night, while Mexico reported 625 additional deaths. The pandemic has killed more people in Brazil than anywhere outside of the United States and the United Kingdom. Asked about efforts to loosen social distancing orders in Brazil despite rising daily death rates and diagnoses, WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said a key criterion for lifting lockdowns was slowing transmission. “The epidemic, the outbreak, in Latin America is deeply, deeply concerning,” she told a news conference in Geneva. Among six key criteria for easing quarantines, she said, “one of them is ideally having your transmission declining”.

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