UN whistleblower on WHO report Italy

ROME (AP) – The UN epidemiologist who denounced the World Health Organization’s withdrawal of a report on the response to the coronavirus in Italy says he is retaliating for speaking out and calls on the agency to honor its obligations to protect whistleblowers.

Dr Francesco Zambon said he filed an internal ethics complaint with WHO in May, after saying he had been pressured by a senior WHO official to falsify data to cover up Italy’s flu pandemic preparation plan since 2006 had not been updated.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Zambon said he never wanted to fight the WHO, but now feels professionally isolated for following WHO regulations to report alleged misconduct.

“I couldn’t keep quiet,” he said. “I do this because I believe in WHO and because I believe in WHO values. One of them is integrity. “

Zambon, WHO’s principal field coordinator for Italy and its regions during the pandemic, was one of the authors of a WHO report examining how Italy responded when it became the epicenter of the European outbreak in late February. The report aimed to help other countries prepare as the virus spread globally, but hit a sensitive nerve here as it noted that Italy entered the crisis with an outdated pandemic plan and that the initial response was “ improvised, chaotic and creative. . “

The WHO pulled the report from its website on May 14, a day after it appeared, and has never republished it. WHO said it contained “factual inaccuracies” but did not say what they were. Zambon says the only inaccuracy was an outdated timeline of the virus in China, which he immediately removed, but the report has never been re-uploaded or distributed.

The scandal over the report’s withdrawal has made headlines in Italy amid suggestions that the WHO was pulling the report away to spare the government’s criticism, embarrassment and accountability.

In the interview, Zambon said he was pressured into fabricating that Italy had not updated its pandemic preparedness plan since 2006. He quoted an email dated May 11 from Dr. contacting the Italian government telling him he must ‘correct’ the date to show that the plan was ‘last updated in 2016’. He said Guerra went on to make a phone call he described as threatening.

Guerra had been in charge of prevention at the Italian Ministry of Health from 2014-2017 and wrote to the then minister that the plan needed to be updated.

Zambon said he refused to give up Guerra’s request because the plan for 2016-2017 was the same as that for 2006. “We couldn’t really say the plan was updated because it wasn’t true,” he said.

Guerra turned down repeated requests for comment to AP. In an interview with La7 television Sunday, he said the earlier plan was considered “current” until the publication of new WHO guidelines in 2018, when he left the ministry.

But the 2006 plan contains gaps in the stages of implementation that critics say may help explain the critical shortage of protective equipment and the chaotic initial response to COVID-19.

Guerra also denied putting any pressure on Zambon, saying he could not fire him for reporting to another WHO chain of command.

WHO did not immediately respond to requests about the status of Zambon’s complaint. WHO has previously stated that it has mechanisms to resolve internal problems and disputes.

Both Guerra and Zambon have since spoken with Italian prosecutors who are investigating the government’s response in violation of WHO guidelines.

A November 1 email from the WHO Legal Department, reported by RAI’s State Television “Report” program, noted that the UN agency faced several lawsuits and parliamentary investigations into COVID-19. .

“We must be careful not to set a precedent or implicitly renounce the immunities applicable to the WHO by attending such hearings,” the email said.

Italian public health officials have said they had no idea that the WHO report was even in the works, suggesting that communication between the UN agency and the government has been cut. As the WHO government liaison, Guerra was given a detailed review of the report to share with the government on April 14, but it is not clear how widely it was shared or whether he followed up on it.

Dr. Giovanni Rezza, chief of infectious disease at Italy’s Superior Institute of Health, said he saw nothing in the report that was terribly problematic, let alone worthy of censorship. “If someone is looking for possible responsibility, it clearly relates to the period when the plan was not updated,” he told a briefing on December 12.

“Of course you can be self-critical, but I found no reason to censor the report,” he said. “I’m shocked if that’s what happened.”

___

Follow AP’s reporting at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak