(Karachi) The World Health Organization, which faced fierce US criticism over its handling of the coronavirus crisis, launched an independent panel on Thursday to review its response to the pandemic.

The Independent panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response will be headed by former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark and former Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

"Through you, the world will understand the truth of what happened and also the solutions to build our future better as one humanity," World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at the UN agency's headquarters in Geneva.

Earlier in his speeches, Tedros said that divisions in the international community over tackling the Covid-19 outbreak could lead to severe consequences if this were not rectified.

"Make no mistake: the greatest threat we face now is not the virus itself -- rather, its the the lack of leadership and solidarity at the global and national levels," he said.

"We cannot defeat this pandemic as a divided world. The virus thrives on division but is thwarted when we unite," he remarked.

The novel coronavirus has killed at least 549,701 people since the outbreak emerged in China last December. At least 12,066,880 cases of coronavirus have been registered in 196 countries and territories. Of these, at least 6,431,400 are now considered recovered.