Chinese candidate in pole position for WHO race

GENEVA, Nov 6 (Reuters) China's candidate to head the World Health Organisation (WHO) took pole position today after a first round of voting for the top job in global health.

Hong Kong's former health director Margaret Chan, who temporarily stood down as WHO's head of communicable diseases to campaign, won most votes as the executive board of the United Nations' health agency cut the field from 11 to a short-list of five, diplomats said.

As expected, she was being pressed hard by Shigeru Omi of Japan, who heads the agency's Western Pacific regional office and Mexico's Health Minister Julio Frenk.

The three, long considered favourites for the 8,000 a year post, were joined on the short-list by Kuwait's Kazem Behbehani, a senior WHO official, and Spain's Health Minister Elena Salgado, the only candidate who is not a trained doctor.

''Chan is the front-runner, you could say that she is in pole position,'' said one diplomat who had been following the voting.

''But it is still a tough one to call,'' he added.

The previous incumbent Lee Jong-wook of South Korea, whose sudden death in May triggered the new election, won in 2003 without being among the early race favourites although he did well in the voting for the short-list.

After interviewing all five on Tuesday, the 34-member board will go through another series of votes to select one candidate to recommend to a special meeting of the 193-state WHO's top decision-taking body, the World Health Assembly.

FIRST FOR CHINA If Chan wins the vote of the assembly on Thursday, it will be the first time that China has held the top job in one of the U.N.'s major agencies.

The international profile of the WHO, which has a two-year budget of 3.3 billion dollars, has increased dramatically in recent years with the emergence of global health emergencies such as AIDS and threats from new diseases such as SARS and bird flu.

Besides helping prepare for a possible bird flu pandemic, the head of the WHO, who can serve for 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 pharmaceuticals companies demand.

''I suppose we think that it will come down to Mexico, China and Japan,'' said a diplomat whose country sits on the board. ''Mexico could be stronger than some people think,'' he added.

All three have weaknesses as well as strengths.

Chan faced criticism in Hong Kong for her handling of the SARS crisis, particularly for an alleged failure to get speedy information from mainland China where the disease began.

Frenk has been attacked by some anti-smoking activists for accepting funding from tobacco companies for health programmes. The fight against smoking is one of the WHO's top priorities.

Omi must contend with the fact that Japan has already held the job between 1988 and 1998.

Former French Health Minister Bernard Kouchner, founder of the Nobel Prize-winning relief agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), was among contenders to be eliminated in today's vote.

Some diplomats expressed surprise that former Mozambique Prime Minister Pascoal Manuel Mocumbi, the only African in the race, did not make the last five as he did in 2003.

Reuters AKJ DB2231