As the world continues to fight the COVID-19 virus, the head of the World Health Organization has defended the organization’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, in response to harsh criticism coming from President Donald Trump.

On Tuesday President Trump threatened to pull US funding for the organization but he later pulled back from the threat.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus during a news conference today called on world leaders not to politicize the virus.

He said: “Please don’t politicize this virus. It exploits the differences you have at the national level. If you want to be exploited and if you want to have many more body bags, then you do it.”

“If you don’t want many more body bags, then you refrain from politicizing it. My short message is: Please quarantine politicizing Covid. The unity of your country will be very important to defeat this dangerous virus,” he continued.

Tedros also took the opportunity to outline a timeline of actions his organization took in response to the crisis. He included that fact that on New Year’s Day, a day after China reported a cluster of cases in Wuhan that were later determined to be the novel coronavirus, the agency activated its Incident Management Support Team to coordinate its response at headquarters, regional headquarters and country level.