United President Donald J. Trump threatened the World Health Organization (WHO) to put on hold funding for the UN health body.
The US president accused the organization of having bias favoring China and performing badly in the COVID-19 pandemic, as deaths from the virus spiked in the United States and Europe and confirmed cases jumped in Africa.
Trump’s threat came as New York recorded 731 deaths from COVID-19 and nearly 400,000 confirmed cases across the US.
The biggest daily rise in deaths also occurred in the United Kingdom as its Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been admitted to hospital and is currently under intensive care.
Due to the fears of a new wave of infections, countries in Asia are tightening up measures against the pandemic with Japan declaring a state of emergency and partial lockdown, Singapore closing all schools and Malaysia extending lockdown.
Meanwhile, a ban on travel was lifted on Wednesday in Wuhan, a city where the virus first emerged.
According to John Hopkins University, the number of infected people has now exceeded 1.4 million with more than 81,500 people have died while approximately 300,000 people have recovered from the virus.
