A report accusing the director of the World Health Organization of covering up epidemics has resurfaced in light of current accusations that the WHO aided China in covering up the global coronavirus pandemic.

The report was first documented in a 2017 New York Times article about Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who goes by the name Dr. Tedros, and his campaign to become the director of the WHO.

The accusations centered around his time as health minister of his native Ethiopia.

"Dr. Tedros is a compassionate and highly competent public health official," said global health law expert Lawrence O. Gostin of Georgetown University at the time.

"But he had a duty to speak truth to power and to honestly identify and report verified cholera outbreaks over an extended period," he added.

Dr. Tedros denied the allegations that he had covered up cholera epidemics in Ethiopia in 2006, 2009 and 2011.

He fired back that his accusers had a "typical colonial mind-set."

He was later elected to lead the World Health Organization and oversaw the response to the pandemic that originated in Wuhan, China.

The debate over the culpability of the WHO came to a head when President Donald Trump announced that he was cutting off payments to the organization pending an investigation into recent questionable mistakes.

Democrats quickly claimed that the president did not have the authority to cut off funding to the WHO and condemned him for the decision.

The 2017 report resurfaced when critics of the WHO began circulating it on social media.

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