WASHINGTON 15 Apr (ANA) - Donald Trump ordered a freeze on funding for the World Health Organization for "mismanaging" the coronavirus crisis, as world leaders weighed easing lockdowns that threaten to tip the global economy into a second Great Depression.

The death toll from the pandemic has topped 125,000, with nearly two million people infected by the disease that has upended society and changed lives for billions confined to their homes around the globe.

World leaders are agonising over when to lift lockdown measures to jump-start devastated economies but still avoid a second wave of infections.

And with the world battling to get on top of the pandemic, the US President fired a broadside at the WHO and halted payments that amounted to $ 400 million last year.

Funding would be frozen pending a review into the WHO's role in "severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus," said Trump, who accused the Geneva-based body of putting "political correctness above life-saving measures."

The outbreak could have been contained "with very little death" if the WHO had accurately assessed the situation in China, where the disease broke out late last year, charged Trump.

He earned a rebuke from the head of the UN and entrepreneur Bill Gates who tweeted that cutting funding was "as dangerous as it sounds."(ANA) 

FA/ANA/15 April 2020-----