US President Donald Trump said the funding would be suspended while an investigation was conducted into the WHO’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

The US president said the funding would be on hold for 60 to 90 days and accused the global body of “severely mismanaging and covering up” the threat.

Meanwhile, the US registered a record of 2,228 deaths in the past 24 hours.

UN secretary-general António Guterres said in a statement that now “is not the time to reduce the resources for the operations of the World Health Organization or any other humanitarian organization in the fight against the virus”.

Dr Patrice Harris, president of the American Medical Association called it “a dangerous step in the wrong direction that will not make defeating COVID-19 easier.”

Dr Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease expert and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security said while reforms might be needed it as not the time.

“It’s not the middle of a pandemic that you do this type of thing,” he said.

Dr William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center

“This virus doesn’t need passports. In a few short months it has travelled to all of the continents of the world except Antarctica. If there were ever an event that showed us how we need to work tougher as a global community, this is it.”