Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2006. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia - November 8, 2006
Laura MacInnis

Chan, 59, will become the first person from China to head a major U.N. agency. A former director of Hong Kong's department of health, her career has been focused on public health.

With Beijing campaigning hard, she had been the front-runner to replace South Korea's Lee Jong-wook who died suddenly in May from a blood clot in the brain, three years into his five-year term as director-general.

The 193-state WHO's top decision-taking body, the World Health Assembly, will be asked to approve the nomination by its board at a special session on Thursday. The assembly has never rejected the board's candidate.

"I am deeply honored by the vote of confidence," Chan told the board following the ballot.

The diminutive medical doctor stepped aside from her job as the WHO's Assistant Director-General for communicable diseases to run for the top job in global health.

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

Beijing's decision to put Chan forward for the post was seen by diplomats as a further sign that China, a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, was interested in playing a wider international role.

STRENGTHEN RELATIONS

Supporters had argued her election could also strengthen relations between the WHO and China, a frontline state in the battle against the new diseases but which has been accused of being slow to share information.

Following her election, China's Health Minister Gao Qiang pledged closer cooperation between Beijing and the United Nations agency.

"China's government will strengthen cooperation with all the member states of the WHO to contribute to a better public health," he told the board, speaking through an interpreter.

Chan beat off challenges by Mexico's Health Minister Julio Frenk, Japan's Shigeru Omi, a senior WHO official, Spain's Health Minister Elena Salgado and another top WHO official, Kuwait's Kazem Behbehani, in final voting on Wednesday.

In the final ballot, it was down to Chan and Frenk, according to diplomats.

Besides helping prepare for a possible bird flu pandemic, Chan, who can serve two five-year terms, must confront tricky political issues.

These include how to balance better access to medicines for poor countries with the drugs' patent protection that big pharmaceutical companies demand.

During nine years as head of health in Hong Kong, she won praise for helping fight the world's first outbreak of bird flu (1997), deciding to cull about 1.5 million poultry.

But she was also criticized in Hong Kong particularly for an alleged failure to get speedy information from mainland China where the disease began.

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