European governments should not cut healthcare spending during the current economic crisis sparked by the coronavirus pandemic and associated lockdowns, the World Health Organisation has warned.

“We are concerned that countries will respond to this crisis in the same way they did to the recession 10 years ago ... by cutting public spending on health,” WHO regional director for Europe, Hans Kluge, told a press conference.

“Countries that took the path of cuts to health spending struggled to recover from the economic shock and we must learn from the mistakes of the past.”