WHO members elect bird flu expert Chan as chief

GENEVA, Nov 10 (Reuters) The World Health Organisation's (WHO) 193 member countries elected bird flu expert Margaret Chan of China to lead the United Nations agency tasked with preventing and fighting global health threats.

Chan, 59, was nominated on Wednesday by the WHO's executive board to succeed the late Lee Jong-wook as director general. The former Hong Kong health chief overcame contenders from Mexico, Japan, Spain and Kuwait for the top job in international health.

As the first Chinese national to head a major UN agency, Chan's election yesterday was seen by diplomats as a sign that China, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, was interested in playing a wider international role.

The profile of the WHO, which has a two-year budget of 3.3 billion dollars, has risen dramatically with the spread of AIDS and other diseases, and the emergence of new threats from the respiratory illness SARS and bird flu.

Chan, most recently the WHO's assistant director-general for communicable diseases, won praise as Hong Kong's health chief for helping douse an earlier bird flu outbreak by ordering the culling of some 1.5 million birds. She also battled SARS, which spread from Asia to other parts of the world in 2002 and 2003.

As head of the WHO, a position she can hold for two five-year terms starting in January, Chan will be responsible for staving off a feared bird flu pandemic, fighting chronic and infectious diseases, and improving poor-country health systems.

Her term will run from January 4, 2007 until June 30, 2012.

Reuters PDM RN0903