New WHO director takes office
Published by Gavin Baker January 6th, 2007 in News, Comings and GoingsA profile of Margaret Chan, who assumed the position of World Health Organization director-general on 4 January.
Chan knows that she faces enormous challenges. Last year, WHO announced that it would take a more active role in ensuring that expensive medicines were available to poor people in the developing world. …
Chan, who has been WHO’s chief communicable disease official for the past two years, will have to show “much stronger engagement” in confronting drug companies in patent disputes so that poor people can get medicines for HIV and malaria, said Tido Von Schoen Angerer, of Doctors Without Borders’ Campaign for Essential Medicines.
Chan has named women and Africa as areas she would target as WHO head. She said that raising the level of achievement of the Millennium Development Goals would benefit both.
The WHO also published an interview with Chan on taking office. For a round-up of the various other coverage of the event, see the summary in the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Daily HIV/AIDS Report.
Deputy Director Announced: Dr Anarfi Asamoa-Baah from Ghana http://www.who.int/entity/mediacentre/news/notes/2007/np02/en/index.html