US President Donald Trump has attacked the World Health Organization (WHO) for being too "China-centric" in its tackling of the coronavirus pandemic.
"The WHO really blew it," the president said, adding that he was considering withdrawing funding to the UN agency.
The US is one of the agency's largest voluntary contributors.
The WHO later rejected Mr Trump's comments, saying that working closely with China was "absolutely essential" in understanding the disease.
Covid-19 first emerged last December in the Chinese city of Wuhan, which has just ended an 11-week lockdown.
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On Tuesday, Mr Trump accused the WHO of being biased towards China in how it issued its guidance during the outbreak.
The president has himself faced criticism for his administration's slow response to the pandemic, including problems with early testing.
The US decided against using a coronavirus test approved by the WHO in January, in favour of a test being developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
In February, the CDC despatched testing kits across the US - but some of them did not work properly, and led to inconclusive results.
Although the US is now carrying hundreds of thousands of tests a day, critics say that the early testing failures were crucial in allowing the virus to spread more widely. President Trump also often downplayed the seriousness of the outbreak during this period.
What did Trump say?
Speaking during the daily Coronavirus Task Force briefing at the White House on Tuesday, Mr Trump said his administration would take "a good look" at its contributions to the WHO, while questioning some of the UN agency's advice.
"They called it wrong," he said, adding: "They really, they missed the call. Fortunately, I rejected their advice on keeping our borders open to China early on. Why did they give us such a faulty recommendation?"
On US financial contributions to the WHO, he said: "We're going to put a hold on money spent... we're going to put a very powerful hold on it and we're going to see."
His remarks came as the US recorded a daily death toll from Covid-19 of more than 1,800. The country has nearly 400,000 known infections, according to figures compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
How has the WHO responded?
A UN spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, rejected Mr Trump's criticism, saying that the WHO's Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus had "done tremendous work" in providing guidance as Covid-19 travelled around the world.
"For the Secretary General [Antonio Guterres], it is clear that the WHO... is showing the strength of the international health system," Mr Dujarric said, adding that the agency was supporting numerous countries with equipment and training.
Source: BBC,com
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