The World Health Organisation should have declared a global emergency earlier than 30 January 2020 and recommended travel restrictions to prevent the outbreak of the COVID pandemic, a panel has said.

A report issued by an independent panel into the handling of the pandemic has also found the month of February last year was “lost” as countries failed to take strong measures to halt the spread of the virus.

It calls for bold reforms of the organisation and for national pandemic plans to be updated to prevent another “toxic cocktail” in the future.

At the launch of the report entitled “COVID-19: Make it the Last Pandemic,” panel co-chair and former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said it was “critical” to have an “empowered WHO”.

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.

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