WHO accuses Nigel Farage of spreading misinformation

The World Health Organization (WHO) has accused Nigel Farage of spreading misinformation. It came after he launched a campaign to block an international treaty designed to improve global pandemic preparedness, the Guardian reported.
WHO member states are negotiating an agreement to strengthen cooperation against new pathogens. If passed, the legally binding treaty would oblige countries to help each other in the event of a pandemic, increase research and data sharing, and promote equitable access to vaccines.
But populist figures, including Farage and a number of Tory MPs, are lobbying the UK government to block the deal. Lawmakers say it would give the WHO the power to impose bans on countries, dictate mask-wearing policy and control vaccine stocks.
Farage heads the Action on World Health (AWH) campaign group, which was registered with the Trade Register last week.
The AWH website lists supporters including Tory MPs Henry Smith, Philip Davies and David Jones, as well as other members of parliament. Trade Register records show it has three directors, including lawyer Paul Diamond, whose work includes cases on behalf of socially conservative Christians and cases challenging the use of vaccines.
Visitors to the AWH site are being asked to find and lobby their MP using template emails with "proposed text" claiming the WHO treaty will "take away" the UK's decision-making powers.
The strength of what some on the right see as a potential new "problem" was highlighted in speeches by Tory MPs such as Philip Hollobone, who described the WHO as an organization under the influence of the "global elite" and called on the UK not to support the treaty.
British Health Secretary Andrew Stevenson urged MPs to dispel myths about the treaty, which the UK is considering whether to support.
"Blocking mandates are not part of the agreement, and Farage's claim that the agreement will require countries to give away 20% of their vaccines is simply not true," Stevenson said.
His comments were supported directly by the WHO. In response to AWH's claims, a spokesman for the organization said the draft treaty reaffirmed the "principle of sovereignty" of member states.
Farage, who denies the campaign is spreading misinformation, claimed the UK government was "running scared" and that Conservative MPs were "suddenly screaming" about the deal.
“The ruling party is very afraid of me and anything that would look like giving up sovereignty after Brexit. I'm trying to bring something to the public's attention that's not being discussed - that's what I've done my whole career - and I think we're already getting support," he said.
European ambassadors, who met at WHO headquarters in Geneva on May 15, expressed concern about the misinformation AWH has been accused of spreading.
One of the WHO's top envoys, who was the UK face of the organization during the pandemic, said he feared health workers and policymakers were having to work in an increasingly difficult environment.
"As public health professionals, we are identified with certain behaviors and we do things that we don't really do. That means, I'm afraid, people who work in public health have become almost a despised community by certain groups and various organizations," said David Nabarro, co-director and chair of the Department of Global Health at the Institute for Innovation in Global Health at Imperial College London.
“What we're trying to do is help people avoid death and avoid misery. "None of us are trying to take any of the political actions we're being accused of, and yet it seems we've become seriously unloved," added Nabarro./BGNES