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 The WHO should have declared the new coronavirus outbreak in China
an international emergency earlier than Jan. 30, 2020, but the next
month was "lost" as countries failed to take strong measures to halt
spread of the respiratory pathogen, it said.
The independent experts, in a major report on the handling of the
pandemic, called for bold WHO reforms and revitalising national
preparedness plans to prevent another "toxic cocktail".
"It is critical to have an empowered WHO," panel co-chair and former
New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark told reporters on the launch
of the report "COVID-19: Make it the Last Pandemic".
Co-chair Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a former president of Liberia, said:
"We are calling for a new surveillance and alert system that is
based on transparency and allows WHO to publish information
immediately."
Health ministers will debate the findings at WHO's annual assembly
opening on May 24. Diplomats say the European Union is driving
reform efforts at the U.N. agency that will take time.
The SARS-CoV-2 virus, which emerged in the central Chinese city of
Wuhan in late 2019, was allowed to evolve into a "catastrophic
pandemic" that has killed more than 3.4 million people and
devastated the world economy, the report said. (Graphic of global
cases and deaths) https://tmsnrt.rs/34pvUyi
"The situation we find ourselves in today could have been
prevented," said Johnson Sirleaf. "It is due to a myriad of
failures, gaps and delays in preparedness and response."
Chinese doctors reported cases of unusual pneumonia in December 2019
and informed authorities, while WHO picked up reports from the
Taiwan Centers for Disease Control and others, the panel said.
But WHO's Emergency Committee should have declared an international
health emergency at its first meeting on Jan. 22 instead of waiting
until Jan. 30, the report said.
That committee did not recommend travel restrictions, due to WHO's
International Health Regulations which need revamping, it said.
"If travel restrictions had been imposed more quickly, more widely,
again that would have been a serious inhibition on the rapid
transmission of the disease and that remains the same today," Clark
said.
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 'A LOST MONTH'
Governments failed to grasp that the emergency
declaration was WHO's "loudest possible alarm"
and that it has no authority to declare a
pandemic, although it eventually described it
that way on March 11, the report added.
"It is glaringly obvious to the Panel that
February 2020 was a lost month, when steps could
and should have been taken to curtail the
epidemic and forestall the pandemic," it said.
Instead of preparing their hospitals for
COVID-19 patients, many countries engaged in a
"winner takes all" scramble for protective
equipment and medicines, it said.
The panel praised the "unstinting" efforts of
WHO leadership and staff during the pandemic. It
did not lay specific blame on China or on WHO
Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus,
whom the Trump administration accused of being
"China-centric", a charge he denied.
But it said that a WHO director-general should
be limited to a single seven-year term, to avoid
political pressure.
The WHO and World Trade Organization should
convene governments and drugmakers to hammer out
an agreement on voluntary licensing and
technology transfers to boost vaccine
production, the report said.
"If such an agreement can't be hammered out
within three months, then a TRIPS waiver should
apply immediately," Clark said, referring to the
WTO's Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual
Property Rights.
Noting the Biden's administration backing last
week for a waiver, she added: "Obviously we're
very encouraged by the momentum for negotiation
of a waiver at TRIPS."
(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Lisa
Shumaker)
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