The agency took it down a day after it was posted on its website, prompting the official who coordinated the work to appeal directly to WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on May 28 and warn that the report’s disappearance was undermining WHO’s credibility. He cautioned that any further attempts at censorship would compromise the agency’s independence and its relations with donor nations that funded the research.

The handling of the report could cause a “scandal of huge proportion — in a delicate moment for the U.N. health agency with the forthcoming COVID-19 investigation,” wrote Francesco Zambon, WHO’s chief field coordinator for Italy and its regions during the pandemic.

WHO did not immediately respond to a request, sent late Friday, for comment on Zambon’s email to headquarters.

The report, written by Zambon and a team of WHO public health experts and consultants, was posted May 13 after it had received necessary approvals within the U.N. system, according to internal WHO documents seen by AP. Read More