Former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf also pulled up the W H O for not having labeled the outbreak Ah health emergency and a pandemic earlier than it did.

Uh, if China had given information on on some of the early findings about a breakout, Um, if w h o had the effectiveness for a timely and effective alarm system, yes, it could have been avoided.

I think our report is very clear.

The report here is a preliminary one that was made public earlier in the week.

Now Sirleaf heads up the so called independent panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response along with former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark.

China responded to some of the findings in this report A Z, the first country to sound the alarm against the pandemic.

We took prompt and decisive measures even though he had incomplete information at the time a day way should of course, strive to do better.

I think any country, whether it be China, the U.

S, the United Kingdom or Japan.

Every country should strive to do better.

Let's get some perspective on this from Dr Claire Went Home.

She is an assistant professor of global health policy at the London School of Economics and has been following the course off this pandemic over the last year.

Dr.

Wenham Welcome Now.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf told our channel that if China and the W.

H.

O acted in time, this pandemic could have been avoided.

Is that a fair assessment?

You think I don't think it is?

I mean, I think there's some things that we know China could have done quicker.

So we know there were some delays in notifying the World Health Organization about this outbreak on maybe recognizing severity of this outbreak in the early stages.

But you have to remember that they were, you know, the first country to ever have seen this.

They didn't, you know, it could be nothing.

They were juggling all these things so well as they could have acted sooner.

China.

We also, you know, shouldn't necessarily suggest that any other country wouldn't have done the same in their position.

The challenge I have is suggesting the W.

H o should have acted sooner.

I think w h o has done everything they could have done in this outbreak.

They, you know, convened an emergency committee.

They declared a public health emergency within a month of notification.

Now, yes, it took two meetings over the course of a week or two weeks.

Thio get this declaration.

But if you think about the Ebola outbreak, for example, that was almost eight months after the first case that we had the public health emergency of international concern declaration.

So I think they acted quite quite quickly on.

They have been nothing but consistent in providing the best evidence and the best guidance to countries across the world.

I think the reason we're in the this situation I don't think it's necessarily China on W h o.

I think it's that countries didn't listen to the W.

H.

O right.

Countries didn't respond quick enough when they said this is an emergency.

Prepare countries were complacent, particularly countries in Europe.

North America who had never really experienced a major pandemic or epidemic before, just sort of waited and didn't really do anything on.

The only thing they did do was stopping travel from China, which we've seen it and has been widely shown to be ineffective.

Yet the report says that the W H O alert and response system is archaic and court needs to be brought into the digital age.

Now you mentioned the Ebola epidemic.

I'd imagine that given an epidemic like the Ebola epidemic or the Zika virus, uh, this would already be a done deal.

So again, that's the part of report.

I don't agree with so much.

I think the W H O system is quite, you know, forward thinking they have the go on network, which, you know, collaborates data reports from across all sources using, you know, Internet mining, using reports on something called promo mail, which is where doctors can share information with each other.

And so, actually, I don't think again, that's the problem for me.

The problem here is in governments responding to that information when they have it.

Fundamentally knowing about this virus a day or two sooner hasn't wouldn't really change the way governments then responded that when they had that information.

So what is the role that the W.

H.

O.

Is playing over here?

If there If if you are saying that the problem lies in countries not acting fast enough.

What is the role that the W.

H.

O is playing?

So I think the W.

H.

O.

Is caught between a rock and a hard place.

It's an institution which is a member state institution, so it relies on and, you know, informs member states.

But it's also, you know, it should be empowered by member states.

At the moment.

What we're seeing is member states across the world departing from W H O advice, charting their own course, taking national approaches rather than thinking about the global level.

I think this raises a much more important question about the role of the World Health Organization.

How do we get governments to both give it the political power to be able to make the decisions, then follow the guidance on dim Porton Lee?

How do we get governments to pay it so it can, you know, pay it properly so it can.

It can dual.

The things that the world expects it to do briefly.

Is there a political will you find to a tall reform the W H.

O.

So that the W H.

O has more teeth.

As you suggest.

The W.

H O is being reformed for for decades already.

The problem is, is that the way it will get reformed is through governments agreeing to it that the World Health Assembly at the World Health Assembly it's one state, one vote on the stand member states then voted in.

The problem is, is it's quite hard to imagine a situation whereby governments will give greater power to the World Health Organization.

And in doing so, that implies that they are then going to cede some of their own national power to be able to make decisions independently, a sovereign nations.

So they really have to recognize the benefit from a public health perspective that can come from having one global actor making the best public health decisions.

But as we know, these decisions aren't just about public health.

They're also about the economy, and so that's where it gets difficult, and this is the real problem, Dr.

Claire went on from the London School of Economics.