Thank you, sir.
I am pretty sure.... I'm not an expert in tobacco, but the tobacco regulation that all UN agencies have to comply with is very old. It wasn't developed just around COVID. In other words, if anyone would have done their due diligence, they should have picked up that tobacco company involvement in it would eventually hit against the UN policy or regulation.
At a minimum, just by calling the WHO and asking them, “If this were to be developed and a tobacco company were involved, what would happen to the approval?”, they would have learned very quickly that it might not be approved, in which case the government could have then invested the money in some other deserving company.
All I would say is, we should have anticipated this.