The World Health Organisation (the WHO) have opened a three-day investigation into their handling of the swine flu pandemic.

The review will be performed by 29 independent experts in Geneva and WHO director Margaret Chan has said it should be “independent, credible and transparent.” She added that the review was designed to look at the organisations’ successes, failures and provide information as to how the body can do better in the future.

The review comes after accusations were levelled that the international reaction to the swine flu virus, lead by the WHO’s recommendations, was overblown and may have been influenced by commercial considerations.

In a separate probe by the Council of Europe, there was criticism of the decision making process, with particular focus paid to the transparency of how decisions were made. Questions were also raised over how much influence the pharmaceutical industry was given regarding pressure to vaccinate the public.

Since the pandemic eased off, many governments have been left with large surplus stocks of the swine flu vaccines, and they have sought to cancel mass orders placed at the height of the spread of the infection.

However some health experts have said that vaccination was the best way forward to protect against the virus. John Oxford, a virologist at Queen Mary’s University, said that he believed much of the criticism was ‘political’.

David Heymann, chairman of the Health Protection Agency in Britain and ex-head of infectious diseases at WHO, said that when an infection was an unknown quantity (as the swine flu virus was) it was better to take the most stringent methods of protection.

It will certainly be interesting to hear the findings of the investigation, particularly regarding whether they could have avoided the wide-scale panic that surrounded the whole situation.