'Must be held accountable': Trump orders funding halt to WHO, US to review 'cover up' of coronavirus outbreak

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced halting America's funding of the World Health Organization (WHO) as he ordered a review to assess the UN body's role in "severely mismanaging and covering up" the spread of the deadly coronavirus.

"Today I am instructing my administration to halt funding of the World Health Organization while a review is conducted to assess the World Health Organization's role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus. Everybody knows what has gone on there," Trump told reporters at his daily White House news conference on the pandemic.

Trump has accused the WHO of taking side with China in the coronavirus outbreak that has forced more than half of the world's population under lockdown.

US provides funding of between US $400 million and US $500 million per year to the WHO while China contributes roughly US $40 million a year and even less, Trump said.

"As the organization's leading sponsor, the United States has a duty to insist on full accountability, one of the most dangerous and costly decisions from the WHO was its disastrous decision to oppose travel restrictions from China and other nations," Trump alleged.

"They were very much opposed to what we did, fortunately, I was not convinced and suspended travel from China saving untold numbers of lives...Thousands and thousands of people would have died," he said.

Trump said the world depends on the WHO to work with countries to ensure that accurate information about international health threats is shared in a timely manner.

"The WHO failed in this basic duty and must be held accountable," he said.

The US President said that the WHO failed to investigate credible reports from sources in Wuhan that conflicted directly with the Chinese government's official accounts.

"Through middle of January it parroted and publicly endorsed the idea that there was not human-to-human transmission happening despite reports and clear evidence to the contrary," he said.

"Had the WHO done its job to get medical experts into China to objectively assess the situation on the ground and to call out China's lack of transparency, the outbreak could have been contained...With very little death...," he said.

"Instead the WHO willingly took China's assurances at face value...And defended the actions of the Chinese government, even praising China for its so-called transparency.... The WHO pushed China's misinformation about the virus, saying it was not communicable, and there was no need for travel bans.... The WHO's reliance on China's disclosures likely caused a 20-fold increase in cases worldwide, and it may be much more than that," Trump said.

He, however, added that the US will continue to engage with the WHO to see if it can make meaningful reforms. "For the time being, we will redirect global health and directly work with others," he said.

Trump claimed WHO's attack on travel restrictions cost lives. "Instead look at the rest of the world, look at parts of Europe other nations and regions who followed WHO guidelines, and kept their borders open to China accelerated the pandemic all around the world," he said.

"With the outbreak of the COVID-19, we have deep concerns whether America's generosity has been put to the best use possible. The reality is that the WHO failed to adequately obtain, vet and share information in a timely and transparent fashion," Trump added.