[Ip-health] AFP: France nominates former UN Kosovo chief for top WHO job

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

Health // Wednesday, September 6, 2006

France nominates former UN Kosovo chief for top WHO job

France has nominated the former UN chief in Kosovo and a founder of
doctors' aid group Medecins sans Frontieres, Bernard Kouchner, to lead
the World Health Organisation, the French mission to the United Nations
announced.
.
Kouchner's candidacy was lodged late Tuesday, hours before the midnight
closure of nominations for the WHO leadership, French diplomats said.
.
The incumbent director general of the WHO, Lee Jong-wook of South Korea,
died suddenly in May.
.
Lee's successor is due to be chosen by an assembly of the WHO's 192
member states on November 9. The UN agency is set to formally release
the list of candidates on Wednesday afternoon.
.
Kouchner, 66, trained as a gastro-enterologist, was a founder of two
international aid groups: Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF, Doctors without
Borders) and Medecins du Monde (MDM, Doctors of the World).
.
He later served as France's health minister, was a Socialist member of
the European Parliament and headed the UN administration in Kosovo from
1999 to 2001.
.
Last year, France nominated Kouchner to lead the UN refugee agency, but
he lost out to the former premier of Portugal Antonio Guterres.
.
More than a dozen candidates have already entered the WHO race, after
being nominated by their governments.
.
Spain has put forward its health minister, Elena Salgado.
.
Mexico's health secretary, Julio Frenk, and Ecuador's interim president,
Alfredo Palacio, are among the other candidates. =97 AFP