WHO chief hopeful accused of covering up cholera epidemics

Dr. Tedros Adhanom

ESAT News (May 15, 2017)

A British medical doctor said in an exclusive interview with ESAT that Dr. Tedros Adhanom, who is running for the top post of WHO, has covered up cholera epidemics, and hence he should be disqualified from the candidacy of WHO director-general position.

Dr. Frank Ashall, who said he was himself a victim of cholera when he was in Ethiopia, told ESAT that an examination of stool smuggled out of Ethiopia proved that the outbreak still being described by Dr. Adhanom and other Ethiopian officials as ‘Acute Watery Diarrhoea’ was actually cholera.

Dr. Ashall was in Ethiopia for four years teaching biochemistry at the medical school of the Addis Ababa University.

Dr. Ashall also said that Dr. Tedros did not voice his opposition when his government made tobacco deals worth 510 million dollars with transnational companies. The Ethiopian regime sold 40% of shares in government-owned tobacco monopoly, National Tobacco Enterprise (NTE), for $510 million to Japan Tobacco International (JTI), one of the world’s wealthiest transnational tobacco companies. “This runs against international accords to which the country is signatory. The public advertisement of tobacco is also against the country’s laws,” he said.

Dr. Ashall went on to say that the Ethiopian regime has deliberately avoided to declare the diarrhea epidemic plaguing the eastern part of the country as “cholera epidemic.” “I know nurses who were told to document cases of patients with cholera as Acute Watery Diarrhea.”

The British doctor and biochemist says the use of Health Extension Workers (HEW) to indoctrinate villagers with ruling party programs and to spy on villagers who speak against the regime has been one of the works of Dr. Adhanom as a health minister. “But Dr. Adhanom is selling this as one of his achievements,” Ashall says.

Dr. Ashall was asked to resign following due to his his strong criticism of the killings and mass detention of anti-government protesters. “They cut my Internet connection and I was removed from committees in the medical faculty. I was finally asked to resign,” he said.

Dr. Ashall says Dr. Adhanom is part of a regime that kills, tortures and imprisons peaceful protesters and hence unqualified to lead the WHO.

Similarly, Dr. Adhanom, a member of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) oligarchy, has been accused of covering up three cholera epidemic when he was the health minister, according to a report by the New York Times.

According to the report, the accusation against him was made by a prominent global health expert.

Lawrence O. Gostin, the director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, called attention to Ethiopia’s long history of denying cholera outbreaks even as aid agencies scramble to contain them. Some of those outbreaks occurred on Dr. Tedros’ watch, the NYT report said.

Dr. Tedros in response said the reported outbreaks were just “Acute Watery Diarrhoea,” a description still in use by the regime for the cholera epidemic still ravaging the Somali region of Ethiopia.