WHO panel to offer report on virus next year

Clark says she and Johnson Sirleaf chose the panel members independently and WHO didn't attempt to influence their choices. “We must honor the more than 25.6 million people known to have contracted the disease and the 850,000 and counting who have died from COVID-19,” Johnson Sirleaf says.

An independent panel appointed by the World Health Organization to review its coordination of the response to the coronavirus pandemic says it will have full access to any internal U.N. agency documents, materials and emails. The panel's co-chairs, former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, announced the 11 other members on Thursday. They include Dr. Joanne Liu, who was an outspoken WHO critic while leading Medecins Sans Frontieres during the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

Also on the panel: Dr. Zhong Nanshan, a renowned Chinese doctor who was the first to publicly confirm human-to-human transmission of the coronavirus; Mark Dybul, who led the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; and David Miliband, a former British foreign secretary who is CEO of the International Rescue Committee. Clark says she and Johnson Sirleaf chose the panel members independently and WHO didn't attempt to influence their choices.

"We must honor the more than 25.6 million people known to have contracted the disease and the 850,000 and counting who have died from COVID-19," Johnson Sirleaf says. The panel will meet Sept. 17 and every six weeks until April. It expects to brief WHO on the initial progress in November before presenting a final report next year.