The role and remit of the World Health Organization (WHO) should be examined in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, and reforms will likely be needed to free it from politics and give it more independence, public health experts said on Wednesday.

Speaking at the Reuters Next conference, British epidemiologist Neil Ferguson, Sweden's state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell and Chikwe Ihekweazu, the head of Nigeria's Centre for Disease Control, said the United Nations health agency had faced difficulties in leading a global response to the pandemic...