Biocon boss feels WHO shot themselves in the foot

Flipkart co- founder Sachin Bansal recently tweeted: “Given how much misinformation has come from @WHO in the last few months, I wonder how much of bad medical advice has been fed to people by them and other authorities over the years.”Given how much misinformation has come from @WHO in the last few months, I wonder how much of bad medical advice ha… https://t.co/AfUxZdg2jb— Sachin Bansal (@_sachinbansal) 1591332263000Bansal is not the only business leader to criticise the World Health Organization recently. A number of CEOs and world leaders have questioned the world body’s handling of the Covid pandemic, including Biocon executive chairperson Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw.“As a world-recognised body that is supposed to give the correct information on which to act, especially at the time of a pandemic, I think they’ve shot themselves in the foot by relying on various kinds of reports or studies that they have not really done due diligence on. Right now, I wouldn’t listen to much of anything that is coming out of the WHO in terms of recommendations,”Mazumdar-Shaw told ETPanache over a phone call. Mazumdar-Shaw feels the WHO has lost credibility because they’ve flip-flopped over a number of issues. “They did not declare it a pandemic early enough. They haven’t even come up with a standard of care for every stage of the disease,” she said.Blundering messMazumdar-Shaw feels the WHO is not the only body to blame. Using the confusion around the HCQ trials as an example, she said, “I would also say that peer-reviewed journals like Lancet and NEJM are to blame. When Lancet came out with this report, the WHO dropped HCQ from the solidarity trial because they believed the study to be authenticated. Now, Lancet has been exposed and so the WHO has brought back HCQ into the solidarity trial. So I would blame Lancet in a big way.”76332656Vaccine updatesAccording to Mazumdar-Shaw, the world body should keep the publ ic informed about vaccine development.“There are 10 vaccines that are under development,” she said. “Ideal ly, the WHO should be tracking those and telling us at what stage each is. But they’re not. They’re either keeping quiet or sort of blindly reporting what others are reporting.”Look inwardMazumdar-Shaw said that countries should start relying on their own information rather than rely on the WHO.“This is the time for India and ICMR [the Indian Council of Medical Research] to become stronger and start building the credibility of its own research and its own approach” she said. “For a country of our size, I would say the number of deaths is low. We need to be talking about how we are managing this disease in our own way. One of the good things we did was that we didn’t play down HCQ as a drug and continued to use it for prophylactic use. So we need to research our methods and start relying on our own data.”76255574

from Economic Times https://ift.tt/30BbZv0