WHO lists 13 candidates to head the UN agency

GENEVA, Sep 6 (Reuters) The World Health Organisation (WHO) today announced 13 candidates to lead the UN agency as it gears up for a possible bird flu pandemic and battles global scourges such as AIDS.

Amongst those standing for the post of Director-General are Margaret Chan of Hong Kong, who heads the agency's campaign against bird flu, former French Health Minister Bernard Kouchner and former Mozambique Prime Minister Pascoal Manuel Mocumbi.

The WHO was forced to seek a new chief after the sudden death in May of South Korea's Lee Jong-wook, who was three years into his five-year term. Lee suffered a blood clot on the brain.

Candidates will have two months for intensive campaigning ahead of a meeting of the 34-state executive board on Nov 6-8, which will pick a name to put to the WHO's top decision-making body, the 192-country World Health Assembly, on Nov. 9.

The job offers a gross salary of 218,000 dollars.

Ecuador, Kuwait, Mexico, Iceland, Myanmar, Syria, Japan, Finland, Spain and Turkey also put forward names for the top job in world health, all of them, with the exception of Syria, from amongst their own nationals.

Syria is sponsoring former Lebanese Health Minister Karam Karam, one of three candidates -- the others are Mexican Health Minister Julio Frenk and Mocumbi -- who stood when Lee won election in 2003.

Unlike at the United Nations headquarters in New York, where the post of Secretary-General traditionally rotates between regions, there is nothing to stop another Asian winning the contest, health sources said.

However, Japan is the only country on the list to have already had a director-general -- Hiroshi Nakajima, who served two terms at the head of the WHO from 1988 to 1998.

Aside from bird flu and AIDS, the new chief will also lead the fight against infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and malaria, which still kill some three million people a year between them, and global health threats posed by poor diet and smoking.

The full list of candidates is as follows: Dr Kazem Behbehani (proposed by Kuwait) Dr Margaret Chan (proposed by China) Dr Julio Frenk (proposed by Mexico) David A Gunnarsson (proposed by Iceland) Dr Nay Htun (proposed by Myanmar) Dr Karam Karam (proposed by Syria) Dr Bernard Kouchner (proposed by France) Dr Pascoal Manuel Mocumbi (proposed by Mozambique) Dr Shigeru Omi (proposed by Japan) Dr Alfredo Palacio Gonzalez (proposed by Ecuador) Pekka Puska (proposed by Finland) Elena Salgado Mendez (proposed by Spain) Dr Tomris Turmen (proposed by Turkey) REUTERS SBA RAI2128