WHO leaders’ ability to respond to pandemic questioned by independent panel’s interim report
An independent panel of international experts is expected to say it is alarmed by the “severely limited” ability of the WHO to judge a viral pandemic and believes China should be able to implement better public health measures in January 2020, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) executive committee meeting on Monday (18).
The World Health Assembly (WHA) in May 2020 resolved to establish an Independent Panel on Pandemic Preparedness and Response (IPPR) to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the WHO response to the Chinese Communist virus. The independent panel will present its interim report at the 148th WHO Executive Board meeting, which will be held from 18 to 26 this month.
According to the panel’s January 2021 report, which was released earlier, the panel was “alarmed” by the limited strength of WHO’s prevention efforts and found that WHO was “gravely limited” in its ability to verify outbreaks, determine whether there was a pandemic trend, deploy resources, and contain outbreaks. The report concluded that WHO needs to strengthen its health leadership and coordination capacity.
The report also pointed out that it is unclear why the Committee on Emergencies, established by WHO under the International Health Regulations, did not meet until the third week of January 2020, and why the first meeting failed to reach an agreed outcome on the declaration of “public health emergencies of international concern”, which was delayed until January 30 to make the relevant decision.
The report also mentions that if WHO uses the term “pandemic” early, will it help prevent the epidemic? Although the term is not used in the International Health Regulations and there is no definition, the use of “pandemic” does help to raise awareness and focus on public health events, but WHO will not use the term until March 2020.
In addition, the independent panel said that local and national health authorities in China could have taken strong public health measures in January 2020; the report also said that in the same month, there was evidence of cases in some countries and that any country with a possible case should have implemented public health control measures immediately at that time, but this did not happen.
The independent panel has not yet completed its work, and there are still some key issues to be investigated. The panel will present its report at the World Health Assembly in May, following its interim report.
The independent panel, co-chaired by former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark and former West African Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, has 11 members, including experts from the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Mexico, India, Colombia and China, with China represented by epidemic prevention expert Zhong Nanshan.
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