India elected to WHO Executive Board

World Health Assembly, the decision-making body of WHO elected India along with Botswana, Columbia, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Madagascar, Oman, Russia, the Republic of Korea and the United Kingdom during its 73rd conference. India was designated after the call for a probe into the WHO's response to the coronavirus crisis.

Geneva: Ten nations including India was elected on Tuesday to chair the World Health Organisation's Executive Board for the period of three years.

World Health Assembly, the decision-making body of WHO elected India along with Botswana, Columbia, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Madagascar, Oman, Russia, the Republic of Korea and the United Kingdom during its 73rd conference.

India was designated after the call for a probe into the WHO's response to the coronavirus crisis.

The World Health Organization bowed to calls on Monday from most of its member states to launch an independent probe into how it managed the international response to the coronavirus, which has been clouded by finger-pointing between the US and China over a pandemic that has killed over 3,00,000 people and levelled the global economy.

However, Trump has targetted WHO and China for a global pandemic. He specifically blamed China for its silence during the initial phase of the coronavirus outbreak.

Trump faulted WHO for having done 'a very sad job' and said he was considering whether to cut the annual US funding from $450 million a year to $40 million.

Trump said that unless WHO commits to “substantive improvements over the next 30 days,” he will make a temporary suspension of US funding permanent.

The infection has gripped 1.5 million infections and more than 90,000 deaths linked to COVID-19.