Geneva – Dr. Margaret Chan, who headed the World Health Organization’s fight against bird flu, was chosen Wednesday to head the agency and lead the international assault on polio, AIDS and other global scourges, becoming the first Chinese to win such a high-profile United Nations post.
Chan, 59, was Hong Kong’s health director when the city reported the world’s first known human outbreak of the H5N1 bird flu virus in 1997. Six people died, but Chan was credited with heading off a major human health crisis by ordering the slaughter of Hong Kong’s entire poultry population – about 1.5 million birds – in three days.
She also received international praise for organizing Hong Kong’s response to a 2003 outbreak of SARS – or severe acute respiratory syndrome – which killed several hundred people.
Her nomination is a victory for China and indicated the communist nation’s interest in playing a bigger role in global affairs.
Chan will officially be appointed the next director-general if she gains a two-thirds majority at a special session today of the agency’s governing World Health Assembly, comprising all 193 member countries. The assembly has never rejected an executive board nominee.
