[Ip-health] AP: World health's top job down to shortlist of five candidates

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

  World health's top job down to shortlist of five candidates

The Associated Press

The five candidates shortlisted for the world's top health job will
undergo grilling Tuesday before the World Health Organization's
Executive Board with two Asian candidates at the top of the list
competing against each other.

At the end of voting Monday, WHO bird flu expert Margaret Chan from
China held a slight lead in the race to become the WHO's
director-general with 32 votes, followed by Shigero Omi, a Japanese who
heads WHO's operations in the Western Pacific and China, with 31.

Among the five candidates were also Mexico's Health Minister Julio
Frenk with 30 votes, and Kazem Behbehani, a senior WHO official from
Kuwait as well as Spanish Health Minister Elena Salgado Mendez with 28
each.

Omi was the only candidate to issue a statement, saying he was
"delighted" to be on the shortlist, and that it was "an excellent first
step, but there is still a lot of work to be done."

The contest for the United Nations' top health job entered its final
round Monday with the start of a three-day meeting to nominate a new
chief, which narrowed the roster of 11 nominees down to five.

Each board member voted for five candidates in each round of secret
ballots.

Anders Nordstrom, who has been acting director-general since late
Director-General Lee Jong-wook died in May, said there is no formal
regional rotation for the leadership position.

On Wednesday the board will nominate one final candidate for approval
by Thursday at a special session of the agency's governing World Health
Assembly, made up of all 193 member countries.

The United States, a member of the WHO executive board, has not
expressed a preference for any of the candidates.

Observers say Hong Kong native Chan, who was the WHO's top official for
pandemic influenza as well as the assistant director-general for
communicable diseases, has China and other Asian countries backing her,
but her chances could be limited because Ban Ki-Moon of South Korea
will be the new U.N. secretary-general. A long-standing U.N. tradition
holds that the top posts at different agencies are geographically
divided.

Omi, a WHO insider with 16 years' experience at the organization's Asia
office, faces the same handicap but could get votes from countries keen
to keep China's influence in the United Nations in check.

Mexico's Frenk is the only candidate from the Americas after Ecuadorean
president Alfredo Palacio Gonzalez dropped out of the running last
week. The minister is credited with revamping the country's health
system by introducing an insurance system for the poor.

Lee took over as director-general of WHO in 2003 as the agency was
winding up its battle against the worldwide SARS outbreak. The South
Korean died of a brain hemorrhage, aged 61.


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Thiru Balasubramaniam
Geneva Representative
CPTech
voice +41.22.791.6727
fax +41.22.723.2988
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thiru@cptech.org