The U.S. pushed for the World Health Organization to “engage directly” with Taiwan in the fight against the coronavirus, prompting a swift rebuke from Beijing’s ambassador to the United Nations health agency. Andrew Bremberg, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, said it is a “technical imperative that WHO present visible public health data on Taiwan as an affected area and engage directly with Taiwan public health authorities on actions,” Reuters reported. In response, China’s delegation expressed “strong dissatisfaction” that some countries had raised the issue of Taiwan’s participation at WHO. Taiwan is not a member of the WHO due to China’s objections. Beijing considers self-governing Taiwan a wayward province to be brought under its control. Separately, Taiwan’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Joanne Ou, slammed China and the WHO for providing inaccurate information about the number of coronavirus cases in Taiwan. The WHO reported Tuesday that the island had 13 cases, when there were only 10 at that time.
Read CNBC’s coverage from our Asia-Pacific and Europe teams overnight: US and China clash at WHO over Taiwan’s participation, death toll tops 500
— Reuters and CNBC’s Tucker Higgins, Amelia Lucas, Lauren Thomas, Hannah Miller, Saheli Roy Choudhury and Sam Meredith contributed to this report.
Source Article from https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/06/coronavirus-latest-updates.html
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