An independent review into the World Health Organization (WHO) co-led by Helen Clark will look at when Beijing knew about the COVID-19 outbreak and how the WHO and other countries responded, she says.
It was revealed on Friday (NZ time) former Prime Minister Clark and ex-Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf will head an independent panel to review its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the response by Governments.
Clark believes there's a lot of "geopolitics" surrounding the review which is why she thinks she was approached for the role.
It will look at how effective the WHO response had been, its mechanisms, and whether it had the right procedures in place, Clark said.
"When you're looking at the WHO-led response you're also looking at how countries responded to it; did countries play their part? There is a broader focus there," she said in an interview with The AM Show.
"I think we have to come to this with open minds - I think one of the reasons they've come to me is I'm seen as an independent person [and] a lot of countries have worked with me.
"They've come to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf because - she's a very respected leader on the African continent - she's one that had to lead her country through the Ebola epidemic which was absolutely devastating through 2014 and 15, so she's got direct hands-on experience of how you deal with this."
Clark said she would look at some of the review "through the lens" of her experience as Prime Minister.
Referencing the Fonterra-Sanlu milk scandal, where thousands of tonnes of contaminated baby formula were swept from the shelves across China in 2008, she said her experience was that Beijing found out about the scandal from the New Zealand Government as opposed to its own provinces.
"It [Beijing] acted very quickly and one of the things that isn't yet established is when did Beijing actually know [about coronavirus]? Wuhan knew earlier but how much went up the top?
"Who knows how far into any of that we can get. What we're interested in is; how did the WHO respond when it knew? Did it have the tools that it needed? Did countries cooperate with it? There's a lot to unpack here," Clark said.
Some US officials will 'definitely' want to be involved
Clark believes there will be some in the US health system that will want to interact with the independent panel.
With nearly 133,000 deaths and close to 3.1 million cases, the US is considered the epicentre of the outbreak.
But US President Donald Trump has controversially cut ties with the WHO, accusing it of mishandling the pandemic.
"The Center for Disease Control (CDC) in the US had people in [the] WHO working very actively on this from the earliest times this year - the WHO and the CDC have a very long relationship," Clark said. "Who knows where we're going to be in four months."
Once the review gets underway, Clark said there will need to be some "forward-thinking".
"In a global pandemic you need a global health organisation which can lead, so the issue is; how can that organisation be the best that it can be?"
