UN Doctor Who Revealed Italian COVID-19 Whitewash Facing Retaliation

An Italian doctor for the United Nations whose withdrawn report for the World Health Organization warned in May about political risks of people dying from COVID-19 now faces retaliation as a whistleblower.

Dr. Francesco Zambon, an epidemiologist, had said that the WHO could suffer “catastrophic” damage to its reputation it if caved in to political pressure, and called upon the agency to protect people who report wrongdoing.

Italy was the first country outside of China facing the virus, seeing mass outbreaks that resulted in a national lockdown, setting off a chain reaction across Europe and the rest of the world.

He said he followed channels by filing an internal ethics complaint with the WHO in May and that he was pressured by a senior WHO official to falsify data to obscure that Italy hadn’t updated its influenza pandemic preparedness plan since 2006.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Zambon said he didn't want a clash with the WHO, which moved to cover up apparent negligence in Italy, but was being isolated professionally for doing it.

“I couldn't be silent," he said. "I’m doing this because I believe in the WHO and because I believe in the values of the WHO. One of them is integrity,” he said although his complaint suggested otherwise.

Zambon, WHO’s Chief Field Coordinator for Italy and its regions during the pandemic, was one of the authors of a WHO report examining how Italy responded when it became the epicenter of the European outbreak in late February.

The report was designed to give a blueprint how to handle the fast spread of the Coronavirus but it ran into a roadblock in claiming Italy wasn't prepared because it had an outdated pandemic plan and its reaction was “improvised, chaotic and creative.”

The WHO, also criticized for failures and being slow to react as the virus spread around the world, pulled the report off its website on May 14, a day after it was published.

The WHO said it had “factual inaccuracies” without specifying on them. Zambon now states there was only one minor error, an out-of-date timeline of the spread in China that he removed immediately.

Italian media had discussed the story alleging the WHO pulled the report because it embarrassed the government, which didn't want to face any consequences or liability for mass deaths in the country.

Zambon said he was squeezed and told not to reveal Italy hadn't updated its pandemic preparedness plan for 14 years and that Dr. Ranieri Guerra, an Assistant Director General at the WHO and liaison with Italy – where he had been in charge of prevention at the Italian Health Ministry from 2014-17, told him to report the pandemic plan had been “last updated in 2016”, not 2006. He later received threats.

The AP said Guerra, who while at the Italian Health Ministry advised the plan be updated, did not respond to a request to comment. But he told La7 TV the 2006 plan was considered current until new WHO guidelines in 2018 and that he didn't threaten Zambon.

Zambon though said that, “We couldn’t really say that the plan was updated because it was not true.” The 2006 plan, the report said, had gaps that were revealed in Italy's critical shortage of protective equipment and chaotic response.

The WHO didn’t immediately respond to requests about the status of Zambon’s complaint and both Guerra and Zambon talked to Italian prosecutors investigating the government’s response, in defiance of WHO guidelines.

The WHO is facing several lawsuits and parliamentary inquiries into its shambolic handling of the crisis, suffering a blow to its reputation.