Committee investigation WHO handling of flu pandemic wants access to confidential exchanges with drugmakers

The World Health Organization last month held a three-day review process of the world's response to the H1N1 influenza pandemic last year. A committee of 29 independent experts set the agenda for a forthcoming year-long probe into how well the first flu pandemic of the 21st century has been managed.

Subsequently, an expert panel investigating the WHO's response to the swine flu outbreak said yesterday that it wants to see confidential exchanges between the WHO and drug companies, many of which, such as the UK's GlaxoSmithKline, France's Sanofi-Aventis and Switzerland's Roche, benefitted from the declaration of the pandemic status by the agency, as governments around the world spent millions getting supplies and drugs and vaccines tio deal with the situation.

The 29-member panel will seek WHO records and correspondence from before and after the H1N1 strain was declared a pandemic in June, said committee chairman Harvey Fineberg, who is also president of the Washington DC, USA-based Institute of Medicine, reported by media sources including the Associated Press and Reuters. "We will want to have access to certain confidential documents that may be in place here at WHO or elsewhere," Mr Fineberg reportedly told journalists in Geneva, Switzerland.