An independent assessment committee consisting of more than 20 medical experts has published a World Health Organization assessment report on the response to the H1N1 flu outbreak in Geneva on March 28th. On the same day, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan welcomed the report and considered “the report’s conclusions on two key issues to be innocented by WHO”.

In April 2009, an outbreak of influenza A in North America broke out and the outbreak spread rapidly thereafter. Two months later, WHO announced that the H1N1 Influenza Awareness Level has been raised to the highest level of 6, requiring countries to prevent the spread of the epidemic through extensive vaccination. This epidemic lasting more than a year caused about 18,500 deaths, and the number of countries and regions where the outbreak has reached 214. In April 2010, the epidemic situation eased. According to the requirements of the International Health Regulations, an expert group was established under the advice of the Director-General of Margaret Chan to assess the success and failure of WHO in response to the epidemic.

Although WHO described the assessment as a working practice, at the time, WHO, the most authoritative United Nations agency in the international health field, was experiencing a crisis of confidence. Some conspiracy theories widely reported in the Western media pushed WHO. To the public opinion of the storm. A survey released by a medical magazine in the United Kingdom in June last year stated that the evidence they collected showed that WHO was not properly handling the influenza pandemic. Several medical experts were issued by the Director-General to issue a warning on the level of illness and provide a reference for decision-making. Several world-renowned pharmaceutical companies have interests and may lead WHO to “magnify the facts” so that pharmaceutical companies can profit from it. Since then, a committee of the European Commission’s committee of subordinate agencies issued a report, concluding that WHO did not honestly assess the threat of H1N1 and that the outbreak response had caused “widespread and unnecessary” panic. As a result, many countries “wasted” on vaccine purchases. Millions of dollars in funds.

For these external doubts and accusations, the World Health Organization has firmly denied it from the very beginning. Director-General Chen Fengfu Zhen stated that commercial interests had never had any influence in WHO's decision-making. She reiterated that WHO's warning level was determined based on virological and epidemiological criteria. Fu Tianjing, Assistant Director-General of the World Health Organization and Chief Consultant on Influenza, believes that the Internet and some media played a negative role in “spreading rumours”, “inciting tension” and “inflicting tension” during the epidemic of H1N1 flu, which interfered with the WHO. Organizations and countries respond to a stream. But Fukuda Jing also acknowledged that there are many areas for improvement in the response process.

The 28th meeting did not openly evaluate the entire contents of the report to the outside world, but provided some conclusions and recommendations. The complete report will be submitted to the World Health Assembly in May. At the meeting, Margaret Chan said that the assessment report addressed two key issues. First, “Whether the WHO's warning level is appropriate? Did the pandemic of a global outbreak really occur?” Is WHO's decisions, advice and actions driven by the interests of the pharmaceutical industry?". She said that the assessment report's answers to these two questions can allow WHO to rid itself of its accusations. It can be said that it is also an innocence of WHO.

Despite the clarification of the “conspiracy theory” that the media once speculated about, the expert group also believes that there are many areas in which WHO can improve in response to the outbreak of the pandemic. First, the standards for the establishment of the existing epidemic warning levels are based on the SARS epidemic in 2003. The criterion for measuring the severity of the epidemic is based on the dissemination scope. If the scope of dissemination is wide, the warning level is high. In 2009, the virus of the outbreak of influenza A virus was relatively mild and the lethality was not high, but the scope of transmission was very wide. If only the warning level was set based on the scope of transmission, it would be unscientific. Second, it was a medical expert who provided consulting services for WHO. The interests of pharmaceutical companies need to be clearer and more transparent. They must adhere to the "conflict of interest statement" in order to let the outside world know about the situation. Third, they pay more attention to the shortage of vaccines in most developing countries in the epidemic and they cannot afford the vaccine. WHO coordinates the organization and mobilization capabilities.

For the assessment report, Margaret Chan said that WHO welcomes the conclusions and recommendations of the report and that WHO will work hard to improve the systems for responding to the pandemic and improve its response capabilities.