PHA-Exchange> Nine candidates nominated for top WHO post

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> Nine candidates nominated for top WHO post
> ------------------------------------------
>
> BMJ 2002;325:1259 (30 November)
> http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/325/7375/1259?ijkey=l5xSvpnNpSrp6
>
> In the race for the world's top health postdirector general of the > World
Health Organizationthe two front runners are from Africa and > Mexico.
>
> WHO unveiled a list of nine candidates, seven of them from developing>
countries, for the role of director general of the United Nations> agency
from July next year, when the present incumbent, Gro Harlem> Brundtland,
retires.
>
> Insiders say it is unlikely that the present director general, a former
prime minister of Norway, will be succeeded by another candidate> from the
developed world.
>
> That would effectively rule out the Belgian epidemiologist and
microbiologist Peter Piot, who heads UNAIDS (the joint UN programme on HIV
and AIDS). Piot, 53, originally made his name as one of the doctors> who
helped isolate the Ebola virus after conducting fieldwork in Zaire in 1976.
>
> Later, as a professor of microbiology at the Institute of Tropical >
Research in Antwerp, Belgium, Dr Piot started to focus on the epidemiology,
virology, and prevention of HIV infection and became a world> pioneer in
this field. He was appointed director of UNAIDS in 1996.
>
> The director general immediately before Brundtland was Hiroshi Nakajima,
from Japan, and it is thought that that will count against another Asian
taking up the post so soon, possibly ruling out Jong Wook Lee, who is from
South Korea. Lee, 57, is a doctor who was appointed  head of the WHO
programme against tuberculosis in 2000.
>
> The front runners for the director general's post are thought to be  Julio
Frenk from Mexico and Pascoal Manuel Mocumbi from Mozambique.
>
> Julio Frenk, 49, Mexico's health minister, is a leading expert in the>
area of public health.
>
> Before joining WHO, Frenk was the executive vice president of the> Mexican
Health Foundation, a private non-profit organisation, and director of its
Centre for Health and the Economy. He also spent a year  at Harvard
University and has been central in the work to develop a tool for measuring
the global burden of disease.
>
> Pascoal Manuel Mocumbi, 61, is a doctor who has been prime minister  of
his country since 1994.
>
> After completing his medical degree in Switzerland in 1973 he became  an
obstetrician and gynaecologist. He held senior posts at several> hospitals
in Mozambique, both as a practitioner and as a local gov ernment
administrator.
>
> In 1980 he was appointed health minister and in 1987 foreign minister, a
post he held until 1994. Mocumbi is a founder member of the> Mozambique
Liberation Front (Frelimo) and a member of the Frelimo
> Party.
>
> Of the other five candidates two are from AfricaAwa Marie Coll-Seck  and
Ismail Sallamone is from Lebanon, one from Mauritius, and one> from the Cook
Islands.
>
> Coll-Seck, 51, health minister of Senegal, is a medical professor who  has
been a policy director at UNAIDS.
>
> Ismail Sallam was Egypt's minister of health and population until a
government reshuffle this year. Sallam, a former professor of cardiac >
surgery, was appointed health minister in 1996 and outlawed the traditional
practice of female circumcision, a decision later overturned > by the
Egyptian courts.
>
> Joseph Williams, a doctor with a practice in New Zealand, is a Cook
Islands parliamentarian who served as prime minister of the Cook Islands
from 1999 until February this year.
>
> The other two candidates are Karam Karam, Lebanon's tourism minister > and
a former health minister, who does not belong to any political> faction, and
Djamil Fareed of Mauritius, an internationally acclaimed  heart specialist
who advises his country's health minister.
>
> In January, WHO's executive board will choose a single name to put to >
the World Health Assembly at its annual meeting in May.
>
> See also pp 1251:
> http://bmj.com/cgi/lookup?lookupType=volpage&vol=325&fp=1259&view=short
> and
> pp 1294:
> http://bmj.com/cgi/lookup?lookupType=volpage&vol=325&fp=1294&view=short
>