[Ip-health] Wall Street Journal: WHO Nominates Chan for Top Post

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116298032347916977.html


WHO Nominates Chan for Top Post

By BETSY MCKAY
November 8, 2006 9:10 a.m.

GENEVA -- The World Health Organization nominated Margaret Chan as its
new director-general today, an infectious disease expert and the first
representative of China to fill the world's most prominent health post.

Culminating a three-day meeting behind closed doors here, the United
Nations' health agency's executive board selected Dr. Chan from a list
of five finalists that also included candidates from Japan, Mexico,
Spain and Kuwait. She beat out second place finisher Julio Frenk of
Mexico by 10 votes, garnering 24 of the executive board's 34 votes.

Dr. Chan, a former director of Hong Kong's health department who has
been at the WHO since 2003, had been considered the favorite going into
voting Wednesday morning. Her most recent position was as WHO's top
communicable diseases official.

Her nomination followed four rapid rounds of voting by the 34-member
executive board, in which representatives of the governments of Japan,
the U.S., Mexico, Iraq and other countries battled over the five
candidates. The other finalists included Kazem Behbehani, a Kuwaiti who
is a top WHO external-relations official; Julio Frenk, Mexico's health
minister; Shigeru Omi of Japan, WHO regional director for the Western
Pacific; and Elena Salgado, Spain's health minister.

In order to become the next WHO director-general, Dr. Chan must now win
a majority vote of the World Health Assembly, the WHO's full governing
body, which consists of representatives of 192 member states. The
assembly is meeting in a special session Thursday for the vote. No
director-general proposed by the executive board has ever been rejected
for the job.

Dr. Chan was a front-runner in the race for a new director-general from
the start and emerged as the clear favorite on Monday when she won more
votes in every round of initial balloting than any of the other 10
candidates. She brings to the job experience on the front lines of the
battle against severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, and the
earliest outbreaks of avian flu. She also stood out for her nomination
by China, where SARS first erupted and whose government was criticized
by the international community for being too slow at times to disclose
health threats. Her nomination represents the first for China.

Chinese officials called Dr. Chan's nomination here Wednesday a
landmark and expressed their gratitude. "We know there are great
responsibilities and high expectations," said Sha Zukang, China's
ambassador and permanent representative to U.N. offices and other
organizations in Switzerland.

Dr. Chan is scheduled to assume her duties as WHO chief on Jan. 4 and
is expected to serve a five-and-a-half-year term ending June 30, 2012.

In a short speech to the executive board, the new WHO chief pledged to
prevent "many millions of untimely deaths" and to continue the legacy
of her predecessor, Lee Jong Wook, whose sudden death of a stroke in
May led to Wednesday's vote. "This is a moment of personal honor and
deep personal responsibility," she said. "I do not take this lightly."

Write to Betsy McKay at betsy.mckay@wsj.com1

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Thiru Balasubramaniam
Geneva Representative
CPTech
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