ROME (AP) – Author of a World Health Organization report on Italy’s response to the coronavirus warned its leaders in May that people could die and that the UN agency could suffer “catastrophic” reputational damage if it allowed political concerns to suppress the document, according to emails seen by The Associated Press.
The comprehensive report examined how the Italian government and the healthcare system reacted after the country became the epicenter of the European outbreak in late February, with real-time data and case studies on what worked and what it did not intend to do. help other countries prepare for the spread of the virus.
The agency withdrew it a day after posting it on its website, prompting the official who coordinated the work to appeal directly to WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on 28 May and warned that the disappearance of the report was undermining the credibility of the WHO. He warned that any further attempt at censorship would compromise the agency’s independence and its relations with the donor countries that funded the investigation.
The handling of the report could cause a “huge proportion scandal, at a delicate time for the UN health agency with the upcoming COVID-19 investigation,” wrote Francesco Zambon, the main field coordinator. the WHO in Italy and its regions during the pandemic.
The WHO did not immediately respond to a request sent Friday afternoon to comment on Zambon’s email at headquarters.
The report, written by Zambon and a team of WHO public health experts and consultants, was released on May 13 after receiving the necessary approvals within the United Nations system, according to internal documents. of the WHO seen by AP. The agency later said it was withdrawn due to “factual inaccuracies” which it has not detailed and denied that it had received any pressure from the Italian government to withdraw it.
Faced with criticism that the report deprived countries of data that could have helped avert Italy’s fate, the WHO said Monday it has offered another “mechanism” for assessing responses to the pandemic. But this was not implemented until two months after the report was withdrawn.
Concerns over the missing report have grown in recent weeks, fueling criticism of WHO leadership over the global pandemic response that led the agency to agree on an independent investigation into its performance..
The United Nations agency has refused to publicly criticize countries that are major donors, even when its policies may undermine public health.
For example, during the early stages of the outbreak in January, WHO officials were frustrated by the lack of information. being shared by China, but he publicly praised the country for its transparency. As the pandemic picked up pace in Europe, WHO scientists internally questioned British policies – as when he suggested he would pursue “herd immunity” – but publicly emphasized his support.
The missing report highlighted the preparation in Italy, where the deadliest outbreak in Europe took place. In the hard-hitting province of Bergamo, prosecutors have seized it as part of their investigation into what went wrong.
Paradoxically, the report is not even critical of the Italian government and officials credited with their efforts, praising at one point how they countered with data “sensational signs of disagreement at the gatherings” that caused anxiety.
The text noted that the Italian Ministry of Health had not updated its flu pandemic preparedness plan since 2006. The 2006 plan was only “confirmed” in 2016-2017 without updating it and was ” more theoretical than practical “.
“Without being prepared for a flood of seriously ill patients, the initial reaction from hospitals was improvised, chaotic and creative,” the report said. “It was a while before formal guidance became available.”
RAI TV’s research report “Report” in Italy has published emails showing that a senior WHO official, Raniero Guerra, who worked as a liaison with the Italian government during the pandemic, told Zambon to “correct” that the Italian preparation plan had been “updated” in 2016, even though the 2016 version was identical to the 2006 version.
Guerra had been in charge of prevention at the Italian Ministry of Health from 2014 to 2017, when the plan should have been revised. He himself wrote to the then Health Minister saying the plan needs to be updated, according to a copy of his 2017 note seen by AP.
The WHO has said the Italian government “at no time” asked it to withdraw the report, which it now says it does not endorse. “The WHO Regional Office for Europe made the decision to remove the document from the website due to factual inaccuracies,” the WHO said.
Guerra told the Financial Times he did not interfere. He added that the 2006 preparedness plan did not really need to be updated because no significant influenza strains had been identified since then and that the preparedness plan was not relevant to the current pandemic because it was only intended to cover the flu.
Deputy Health Minister Pierpaolo Sileri begged him not to agree. “This plan was from 2006 and needed to be updated,” Sileri told the Corriere della Sera newspaper. Guerra did not immediately answer AP’s questions, saying he was traveling.
The emails seen by AP suggest that WHO officials were concerned that the report would have upset Italians, offering rare information about the UN agency’s decision-making, which is not subject to requests for freedom of information.
In an email sent to Zambon on May 13, Guerra noted that Italy had just made a voluntary donation of 10 million euros ($ 12.3 million) to the WHO and that negotiations between the WHO and Italy to fund the agency’s Venice office were about to begin.
“There are already signs of institutional turmoil on the Italian side and unnecessary resentment against the WHO,” Guerra wrote to Zambon on May 14, the day the report was withdrawn.
A day later, the head of WHO Europe, Dr. Hans Kluge, wrote to Zambon that the “key issue” at stake in the controversy was his relationship with Italian Health Minister Roberto Speranza, of whom he said who was “very disappointed.” for the report.
The Italian government, he said, considers that “they are constantly attacked by the press and that every word can be misinterpreted. They felt trampled by a friend.”
Kluge said he would propose to Speranza to include Italian health officials in a review of the report. “We need happy MoH (Ministry of Health) and we will sign in Venice,” he said, referring to the office funding.
The ministry told RAI that it does not consider the official report.
Meanwhile, Zambon warned Tedros and Kluge that lives were being put at risk around the world by retaining Italy’s “lessons learned.”
“A great team of experts worked literally day and night with one motivation: to make sure that what happened in Italy was not repeated in the countries that lagged behind the epidemic curve,” Zambon wrote in Kluge on 27 May. “The report contains important messages, extrapolated from facts about what worked (many things) and the blind spots of the system.”
A day later, in a message to the head of the WHO, Zambon warned of a “risk of catastrophic damage in terms of independence and transparency if a” censored “version of the said publication is modified, as well as of “committed” relations with the government of Kuwait, which is one of the largest donors to the WHO and had funded the research with a grant of $ 80 million.
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AP medical writer Maria Cheng contributed in Toronto and writer Jamey Keaten in Geneva.
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