In May, the day after publication, the WHO took offline a report critical of Italy’s response to the first corona wave. ‘Due to irregularities’, it sounds officially. According to The Guardian however, there was political pressure involved. “This report could have avoided deaths.”
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The report entitled ‘An Unseen Challenge: Italy’s Approach to the First Wave’ analyzes in 102 pages how Italy reacted to the first outbreak of the coronavirus. It appeared on the website of the World Health Organization (WHO on May 13). A day later it had already disappeared. Officially the explanation was that there were ‘irregularities’, but The Guardian the document was taken down for more obscure reasons.
A research of The Guardian accuses the World Health Organization (WHO) of taking the report offline in liaison with Italian Health Minister Roberto Speranza. The British newspaper relies on a testimony from the author of the document, Francesco Zambon, and emails she was able to consult between the author and WHO European Director Hans Kluge and Assistant Director General Ranieri Guerra.
Outdated plan of action
The analysis was supposed to help other countries not yet affected by the virus to limit the death toll, but a passage in it would have been too sensitive. After all, the report indicates that the Italian emergency plan for pandemics had not changed for fourteen years. As a result, the initial response to the outbreak in the hospitals was ‘unprepared, improvised and chaotic’.
Ranieri Guerra, WHO’s assistant director general for strategy, is said to have urged Zambon to delete that passage. The author refused. After all, between 2014 and 2017, the responsibility for updating the action plan lay with Guerra itself. During this period, he was responsible for the Italian Ministry of Health. In e-mails he expressed the concern that the report does not take into account ‘the political sensitivity towards the minister’. He also referred to the funds that the WHO received from Italy.
‘Disappointed minister’
WHO director Hans Kluge wrote in an email to the author on the day of publication that the Italian minister was ‘very disappointed’. He promised to iron out the fold, but the report was not republished. Italian Health Minister Roberto Speranza is said to have received a summary of the report a month before publication. The Italian Ministry of Health denies this and makes no further comment.
An investigation by the public prosecutor in Bergamo into possible negligence by the authorities makes the case all the more explosive. The outdated plan of action would be a crucial element in this. The WHO is said to have prevented Zambon from speaking to the researchers. Guerra would have spoken to them. A possible consequence of the investigation is that all health ministers and prime ministers of Italy will have to appear in court after 2013.
In Italy, a total of more than 62,000 deaths have been caused by covid-19. The southern European country was the first in Europe to be severely affected by the corona virus. During the first wave, concern in Northern Italy was inundated. Images of patients in the corridors and squares of hospitals went around the world. The second wave is also rampant in Italy.
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