By JAMEY KEATEN and MARIA CHENG, Associated Press

GENEVA (AP) — China will provide $2 billion over two years to fight the coronavirus pandemic and the economic fallout from it, President Xi Jinping said Monday, rallying around the World Health Organization even as the United States has slashed funding for the U.N. health agency and sought to undermine its credibility.

The European Union’s 27-member bloc and other countries, meanwhile, called for an independent evaluation of WHO’s initial response to the coronavirus pandemic “to review experience gained and lessons learned.”

In a speech to the World Health Assembly, Xi said China had provided all relevant outbreak data to WHO and other countries, including the virus’s genetic sequence, “in a most timely fashion.”

In his address to the annual meeting of WHO’s member countries, director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned there is still “a long road to travel” before the pandemic is contained, noting that the majority of the world’s population remains susceptible to the virus.

Tedros said the pandemic has exposed critical fault lines between countries that could jeopardize stopping the virus.