The African Union (AU) — through its chair President Cyril Ramaphosa — has thrown its weight behind the World Health Organisation (WHO), in the face of criticism by US president Donald Trump.
In a statement on Wednesday night, the AU commended the WHO for its “good work” in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.
Ramaphosa was particularly full of praise for the WHO's director-general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who was described as showing “exceptional leadership ... from the earliest stages of this unprecedented global health crisis”.
This comes as Trump earlier in the week threatened to pull US funding to the WHO, saying that it was “China-centric” and that it “called it [the coronavirus pandemic] wrong”.