Sharjah24 – Reuters: The World Health Organization, at the heart of the world's slow and stuttering handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, faces a potential shake-up aimed at preventing future outbreaks from destroying lives and livelihoods.

Health ministers agreed on Monday (May 31) to study recommendations for ambitious reforms made by independent experts to strengthen the capacity of both the U.N. agency and countries to contain new pathogens.

Under the resolution submitted by the European Union, and adopted by consensus, member states are to be firmly in the driver's seat of the reforms through a year-long process.

The new virus has infected more than 170 million people and killed nearly 3.7 million, according to a Reuters tally of official national figures.

Health ministers from WHO's 194 member states will also meet from Nov. 29 to decide whether to launch negotiations on an international treaty aimed at boosting defenses against any future pandemic.

WHO's emergencies director, Mike Ryan, welcomed the decisions, telling its annual ministerial assembly: "Right now the pathogens have the upper hand, they are emerging more frequently and often silently in a planet that is out of balance."

"We need to turn that very thing that has exposed us in this pandemic, our interconnectedness, we need to turn that into a strength," he said.

The decisions, approved in committee, are due to be formally adopted in a plenary session later on Monday (May 31), the last day of its week-long assembly.