A study has concluded that the COVID-19 pandemic was a preventable disaster that did not have to cost millions of lives if the world had reacted more quickly.
This is the finding of an independent high-level panel, which has castigated global leaders and called for major changes to prevent a recurrence.
The report was commissioned by World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus at the prompting of member states, who called at the World Health Assembly in May last year for an impartial review of what happened and what could be learned from the pandemic.
According to the Guardian newspaper, the report of the panel, chaired by former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark and former president of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, found weak links at every point in the chain.
It said preparation was inconsistent and under-funded, the alert system too slow and too meek, while the World Health Organization was underpowered.
The panel concluded the response had exacerbated inequalities.
The report said China detected and identified the new virus promptly when it emerged at the end of 2019 and gave warnings that should have been heeded.
Ms Clark described February 2020 as a month of lost opportunity to avert a pandemic, as many countries chose to wait and see.
She said it was not until hospital intensive care unit beds began to fill that more action was taken, but by then it was too late to avert the pandemic's impact.
Ms Sirleaf observed that the pandemic is partly due to failure to learn from the past.
The panel calls for radical changes to bring heads of state together to oversee pandemic preparations, ensuring the finance and tools the world needs are in place.
It wants a faster-moving, better-resourced WHO and a commitment now from leaders of affluent countries to supply vaccines for the rest of the world.
The WHO panel has recommended the creation of a global health threats council, to be led by heads of state.
This is to keep attention on the threats of pandemics and ensure collective action.
The panel has also called for a special session of the UN general assembly later this year to agree a political declaration that the WHO must have more power and additional funding.
It also wants WHO regional directors and the director general to serve a single term of seven years.
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