India along with 62 countries that have backed a joint effort by Australia and the European Union (EU) who had called out for an independent inquiry into the origins of the virus and the WHO’s response to COVID-19 pandemic.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has agreed to an independent investigation into how it managed the international response to coronavirus.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus committed to a review involving China during an unprecedented virtual meeting of the WHO’s decision-making body, the World Health Assembly (WHA).

However, he said that such an investigation would come ‘at the earliest appropriate moment’, ideally only after the pandemic has died down.

‘We all have lessons to learn from the pandemic. Every country and every organisation must examine its response and learn from its experience. WHO is committed to transparency, accountability and continuous improvement,’ Tedros said.

The draft calls for ‘impartial, independent and comprehensive’ probe into the coronavirus crisis, besides an inquiry into the actions of the World Health Organization (WHO) and ‘their timelines pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic.’

‘Initiate, at the earliest appropriate moment, and in consultation with the Member States a stepwise process of impartial, independent and comprehensive evaluation, including using existing Mechanisms, as appropriate, to review experience gained and lessons learned from the WHO-coordinated international health response to COVID-19,’ the draft report read.

European nations and Australia have been gathering support for an ‘impartial, independent and comprehensive evaluation’ of ‘the WHO-coordinated international health response to COVID-19’.

Other major countries named in the EU-backed draft include Japan, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, South Korea, Brazil, and Canada.

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