Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesuss was a committee member of the Marxist/Leninist Tigray Peoples Liberation Front who as health minister the government failed to honestly and openly report several cholera outbreaks, despite UN confirmation of the disease.

He served as Ethiopia’s health minister from 2005 to 2012 and foreign minister until 2016. In 2014. Since a cholera outbreak in 2006 in the Oromia region, Ethiopia has referred to the disease as “acute watery diarrhea” (AWD) to cover up the disease.

AWD was confirmed by the UN to be waterborne cholera, which is caused by the Vibrio cholerae bacterium but Tedros chose to cover it up because it could make Ethiopia look bad, hurt tourism and could result in some countries banning food exports from Ethiopia.

Human Rights Watch “We have interviewed a number of health professionals who have been pressured by government officials not to refer to cholera outbreaks as such, instead referring to outbreaks as ‘diarrhea’ or AWD,”

So while neighboring Somalia, South Sudan and Kenya have cholera outbreaks, Ethiopia just has diarrhea outbreaks. The Ethiopian Medical Association who endorsed Tedros said “We have been informed that it was acute watery diarrhea.”

Tredros succeed Margaret Chan who as Director-General of the World Health Organization who covered up the Ebola outbreak in West Africa for fear it would impact tourism costing many lives.

Internal WHO emails cited worries that declaring such an emergency — akin to an international SOS — could anger the African countries involved, hurt their economies or interfere with the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca.

Michael Osterholm: "That's like saying you don't want to call the fire department because you're afraid the fire trucks will create a disturbance in the neighborhood,"

But internal documents obtained by AP show that senior directors at the health agency's headquarters in Geneva were informed of how dire the situation was early on and held off on declaring a global emergency.

WHO's Dr. Sylvie Briand later conceded concerning the Ebola cover-up: "What I've seen in general is that for developing countries it's sort of a death warrant you're signing,"

By the time WHO declared an international emergency, nearly 1,000 people were already dead. Overall, more than 10,000 are thought to have died in the year since the outbreak was announced.

WHO's Dr. Bruce Aylward said labeling the Ebola outbreak a global emergency would have been no magic bullet. His name may be familiar from this interview back in March: https://twitter.com/studioincendo/status/1243909358133473285

WHO official Stella Chungong said she was very worried, warning in an email that terrified health workers might abandon Donka Hospital. But former WHO doctor Matthieu Kamwa said "People died because things were not done."

In Liberia, MSF's Lindis Hurum said she sent a letter complaining about a WHO consultant who was proposing "completely unrealistic" treatments.

One scientist working for WHO caught Ebola & instead of going into a treatment center stayed at the Luawa Resort Hotel "We were pretty shocked that he was still at the hotel," Stals said. "You would expect more mature and responsible behavior from a doctor who should know better.