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With War, the WHO silences Italy’s anti-Covid deficiencies?

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With War, the WHO silences Italy's anti-Covid deficiencies?

What the Rai3 program, Report, revealed on the case of the (hidden) report by WHO researchers on the anti-pandemic strategy in Italy. The case of the failure to update the anti-pandemic plan, the role of Ranieri Guerra (WHO) and the mutual coverage between WHO and the Italian government (i.e. between WHO and Minister Speranza)

Did Italy have an updated pandemic plan?

Establishing this is essential in the investigation of the Alzano hospital and the management of the epidemic in the Bergamo area, but the World Health Organization, called upon to testify as it is aware of the facts, has invoked diplomatic immunity. However, Ranieri Guerra, now deputy director of the WHO, who had to update the Italian pandemic plan, did not use this immunity.

Only the researchers who drafted the report (funded by Kuwait) denouncing Italy's shortcomings and errors in the management of the pandemic are prohibited by WHO from meeting with prosecutors. Among these is Francesco Zambon .

All the details.

THE WORDS OF THE BERGAMO PROSECUTOR

“Our interest is to ascertain whether or not a pandemic plan exists and when it would be drafted. This is important for the assessments that the prosecutor is making in the context of the investigation into the Alzano hospital and the management of the epidemic in the Bergamo area ", during the months of February and March, the Bergamo Public Prosecutor told Ansa Antonio Chiappani.

THE INVESTIGATION

Let's take a step back. The investigation by the Bergamo Public Prosecutor's Office concerns the failure to establish the red zone in Val Seriana and the closure and then almost immediate reopening of the hospital in Alzano Lombardo. The offense is a culpable epidemic.

To establish the facts and evaluate what happened, the prosecutor heard the Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, the Minister Roberto Speranza, the President of the Lombardy Region, Attilio Fontana.

THE INVITATION TO BE WITNESS OF SOME WHO RESEARCHERS

With the same objective, the Prosecutor's Office also summoned some WHO researchers as persons informed of the facts. Researchers, however, who did not appear to testify because the World Health Organization invoked diplomatic immunity. The organization – as reconstructed by Report – urged researchers not to appear in front of prosecutors. The WHO, according to the episode of Report on November 30, sent from Copenhagen, European headquarters, a note to the Public Prosecutor's Office and to the Foreign and Health Ministers, Luigi Di Maio and Roberto Speranza, in which it states that its researchers are not required to answer questions from magistrates due to their special status.

DOES WHO REALLY HAVE IMMUNITY?

Now it is also up to the Prosecutor's office to clarify whether this immunity exists: with this aim, an "dialogue" with the Foreign Ministry has been initiated to understand whether the Organization can make use of the possibility of not answering the questions of the Prosecutor on the basis to the provisions of the 1947 Convention on the privileges and guarantees of those who belong to UN agencies.

THE CASE RANIERI WAR

However, the Deputy Director General of WHO, Ranieri Guerra, did not make use of this immunity, as the Prosecutor was able to hear on 5 November as a person informed on the facts.

THE RESPONSIBILITIES FOR THE LACK OF THE PANDEMIC PLAN

But the responsibility for the failed Italian pandemic plan should be attributed to Ranieri Guerra.

Guerra, currently the former director of the Ministry of Health. The task of updating the pandemic plan rested with the Ministry's Prevention Department. Between 2014 and 2017, Report told in the previous episodes, Ranieri Guerra was leading it.

THE WHO REPORT

Italy's unpreparedness emerges from a WHO report, published on 13 May last (and removed a few hours later). The 100-page report, written by 10 researchers and titled "An unprecedented challenge, Italy's first response to Covid" claimed that our country did not have an updated and adequate pandemic plan.

A VERY OLD PANDEMIC PLAN

The obligation to have a plan for any pandemics was fulfilled in the years headed by Ranieri Guerra, reconfirming a plan from 2006.

That report, according to Report from a leak it came into possession of, “embarrassed the Italian government and the Minister of Health Speranza and even more the WHO Deputy Director Ranieri Guerra. In fact, among the various critical issues noted by the researchers, it is certified that the Italian pandemic prevention plan was very old, from 2006. And never updated ”.

THE PRESSING OF RANIERI GUERRA

And it is precisely for this reason that Guerra, "in his capacity as top official of WHO, wrote to one of the authors to indicate as the date of the plan 2016 instead of 2006. But 2016 is only the update date of the web page and not that of the plan. A sleight of hand ”, reports Report.

Ranieri in the e-mail to the author of the report then inguattato by the WHO itself wrote: “you must correct immediately in the text: 1. National plan for preparation and response to an influenza pandemic; Ministry of Health; 2006 (…) And report what is available on the minsalute website (…) Last updated December 2016. Don't mess with me about this. (…) Tonight we go on Report's teeth and we can't be suicidal. (…) Now I block everything with Soumya. Let me have the revised version as soon as you can. So he can't go out ”.

HOPE AND BRUSAFERRO annoyed

He was not wrong about this. That report, says a WHO researcher to Report , "also annoyed the president of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità, Silvio Brusaferro, and the Minister of Health Roberto Speranza, who would have liked to be informed before publication".

What was written in the document offended the sensitivity of the government and for this reason, Guerra writes, "the most problematic parts of the report had to be mitigated".

WHO AS A FIG LEAF

It's still. In another e-mail communication revealed by Report , Guerra tells of an alleged tacit agreement between the WHO and the Italian government. One of Speranza's trump cards has always been the ability to refer to WHO as a conscious (sic) daughter of fig for certain unpopular decisions criticized by various subjects. This was a matter of discussion and agreement with Tedros, also through whoever writes to you and the Mission in Geneva ”, writes Guerra. “If even WHO takes on a critical role not in agreement with the political sensitivity of the Minister who is certainly superior to mine, I don't think we are doing the country a good service. Remember that they have just made a voluntary contribution of 10 million on trust and as a sign of gratitude for what has been done so far, after six years of zero ”.

Pressed by the Report's questions on what he wrote and what he had declared in the Prosecutor's Office, however, Guerra makes a silent scene.

CRISTIANA SALVI: THAT REPORT IS NOT REFERRED TO WHO

Not even Tedros Adhanom, director general of the World Health Organization, does not answer the questions. And also Cristiana Salvi, Head of External Relations, Health Emergencies of the World Health Organization, contacted by the Rai3 broadcast: "The report (on the lack of the pandemic plan, ed) is not attributable to the WHO", he replied

“The WHO European Communications Head is the one who wrote you this is not a WHO document. He got everyone in trouble. It had already been spent before the publication to eliminate the most embarrassing passages for the Italian government, ”says the WHO researcher in Copenhagen.

ZAMBON (ONE OF THE AUTHORS OF THE REPORT) IS AWARE OF DISMISSAL

"The delivery is to keep your mouth shut," added the researcher. Even Francesco Zambon , one of the authors of the WHO report, was ordered to remain silent. And summoned twice by the prosecutor of Bergamo, Zambon did not go.

"The first time I was summoned as a person informed of the facts, but if they want to hear from me I'll go", Zambon told Report, underlining that the report in question "is not full of inaccuracies" compared to what has been said. Zambon implies that if he spoke, he could be fired. “It's been May, it's not a pleasant situation, I'm not how it will end, it's been a lot of months, I'm tired,” said Zambon. Did I finish something bigger than her ?, asks the reporter. "I do not know. I certainly ended up in something, but I don't know what ”.

THE WITHDRAWAL MADE THE KUWAIT ANGRY

Will the WHO give Kuwait any answer? The WHO study was financed with about $ 100,000 by a grant from Kuwait, which will certainly not be happy to know that its money has ended up in the garbage. “The WHO has even withdrawn the printed copies for fear that they would be disclosed. He called Kuwait and said that there was an error in the report and that they had to send it back, that WHO would bear the costs, ”said the WHO researcher heard by Report.

RANIERI GUERRA: A REVERSE "CASE"

Throughout this story, there is another detail to point out: “Generally it is countries that second their staff to WHO as a form of assistance to the organization,” says Nicoletta Dentico, Health Innovation In Practice. With Ranieri Guerra, however, the case is “overturned: Guerra is paid by the WHO and is a kind of WHO detachment to Italy”, explains Dentico.

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/sanita/oms-guerra-silenzia-le-carenze-anti-covid-italia/ on Tue, 01 Dec 2020 08:28:28 +0000.