AFRO-NETS> Nine candidates nominated for top WHO post

[Dieter Neuvians MD <neuvians@mweb.co.za>]

Nine candidates nominated for top WHO post
------------------------------------------

BMJ 2002;325:1259 (30 November)
http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/325/7375/1259?ijkey=l5xSvpnNpSrp6

Fiona Fleck, Geneva

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 for-
mer prime minister of Norway, will be succeeded by another candidate 
from the developed world.

That would effectively rule out the Belgian epidemiologist and micro-
biologist 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 Piot, 53, originally made his name as one of the doctors 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 Za-
ire in 1976.

Later, as a professor of microbiology at the Institute of Tropical 
Research in Antwerp, Belgium, Dr Piot started to focus on the epide-
miology, 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 Naka-
jima, from Japan, and it is thought that that will count against an-
other 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 di-
rector 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 minis-
ter, 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 tra-
ditional 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 Is-
lands 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

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