WHO members elect bird flu expert Chan as chief
By Stephanie Nebehay
The Star, 10  Nov 2006

GENEVA (Reuters) - Chinese bird flu expert Margaret Chan, elected on Thursday as head of the World Health Organization (WHO), set improving the health of Africans and women as her two top priorities. 

She also vowed to "speak out" if countries including China failed to strengthen surveillance against dangerous diseases, including bird flu, or proved reluctant to share the virus samples needed to help develop vaccines. 

"I want us to be judged by the impact we have on the health of the people of Africa, and the health of women," she said after being confirmed as director-general by the 193-state World Health Assembly, the U.N agency's top decision-taking body. 

Chan, 59, was nominated on Wednesday by the WHO's executive board to succeed the late Lee Jong-wook. The former Hong Kong health chief overcame contenders from Mexico, Japan, Spain and Kuwait for the top job

in international public health. 

She is the first Chinese national to head a major U.N. agency. 

The profile of the WHO, which has a two-year budget of $3.3 billion, has risen dramatically with the spread of AIDS and other diseases, and the emergence of new threats from the respiratory illness SARS and bird flu. 

Chan, most recently the WHO's assistant director-general for communicable diseases, said that the world needed to reinforce surveillance to ensure that new killer diseases, which she said would continue to emerge, were quickly detected. 

"I share your deep concern about the looming threat of an influenza pandemic," she told WHO delegates. "The global surveillance system must have no gaps or weak spots." 

Bird flu, which has ravaged poultry populations in Southeast Asia, remains mostly an animal disease. But it has killed more than 200 people since late 2003 and experts fear that if it becomes more easily passed between humans it could trigger a pandemic in which millions of people could die. 

CHINA CRITICISED  China has been criticized for being slow in sharing virus samples from both animal and human victims of bird flu, required for genetic sequencing to develop a potential pandemic vaccine. 

Asked at a news conference about the issue, Chan said: "I will speak up if member states need to strengthen their efforts. If you are referring to China, I will definitely speak out and urge China to share specimens and information." 

Diplomats praised the experience and expertise of Chan, who was Hong Kong's health director at the time of the first bird flu outbreak in 1997, and who also battled the SARS epidemic. 

"Her experience with emerging and infectious diseases is extremely reassuring in a period of looming pandemic," said Indonesia's Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari, speaking on behalf of the WHO's Southeast Asia region. 

Chan said that her goals for global health also included improving reproductive health and tackling the growing burden of chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease. 

Completing polio eradication worldwide and controlling tobacco use were other priorities. 

Her term will run from Jan. 4, 2007, to June 30, 2012. She can be re-appointed once.