[e-drug] WHO successor: list shrinks

[Leela McCullough <leela@usa.healthnet.org>]

E-drug: WHO successor: list shrinks
---------------------------------------------

from UN Wire Jan 21, 2003
Number Of Candidates For Top Post Shrinking
Mozambican Prime Minister Pascoal Mocumbi and former Mexican Health
Minister Julio Frenk are the leading candidates to succeed World Health
Organization Director General Gro Harlem Brundtland when she steps down in
July, Agencia EFE reports (EFE, Jan. 21, UN Wire translation).

According to LUSA Agencia de Noticias, Mocumbi, Frenk and three others have
been placed on a short list of candidates for the post by the WHO Executive
Board, which began meeting in Geneva yesterday. LUSA reports that Joint
U.N. Program on HIV/AIDS head Peter Piot and Joon Wook Lee, the head of the
WHO's tuberculosis program, are top candidates and that the last candidate
to make the list was former Egyptian Health Minister Ismail Sallam.
The board has reportedly dropped two candidates, former Lebanese Health
Minister Karam Karam and Joseph Williams, a former health minister of the
Cook Islands (LUSA, Jan. 21). Senegalese Health Minister Awa Marie
Coll-Seck has withdrawn her bid for the post, citing a desire to "save
African unity." The African Union has given its formal backing to Mocumbi
(Agence France-Presse, Jan. 20).

The board will vote by secret ballot next week, ultimately endorsing a
single candidate (Stephanie Nebehay, Reuters/Environmental News Network,
Jan. 21). The final decision will be in the hands of the World Health
Assembly when it meets in May. The assembly generally bases its choice on
the endorsement of the board (EFE).

The WHO has never had an African director general. In addition to the
support of the African Union, Mocumbi's candidacy also has the backing of
the Comunidade dos Paises de Lingua Portuguesa and the Southern African
Development Community (LUSA). France is also supporting Mocumbi (EFE).
"There is probably a lot of momentum for a candidate from a developing
country," said a health official quoted by Reuters. "There is recognition
that there has never been an African. ... That would argue in favor of
Mocumbi" (Nebehay, Reuters/ENN).

Senegalese Foreign Minister Cheikh Tidiane Gadio, though, criticized the
African Union for endorsing a single candidate. "We're not fighting for one
candidate at the expense of other African nationalities," he said. "We're
fighting for the status of the continent" (AFP).

The Morning Star reported yesterday that the United States is working to
block an African from taking over the post, lobbying instead for Frenk. The
newspaper linked U.S. opposition to an African WHO head to pharmaceutical
companies' opposition to generic HIV/AIDS drugs that violate patents
(Morning Star, Jan. 20).

Reuters reports that Lee has the support of key East Asian countries, while
several developing countries and the United Kingdom are backing Piot.
According to Nancy Upham, president of the umbrella group People's Health
Movement, the board's decision "will be crucial for the future of
international health policy" (Nebehay, Reuters/ENN).
In a commentary in the Boston Globe Sunday, Lancet editor in chief Richard
Horton agreed.
"Both ... UNICEF ... and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human
Rights ... have higher public profiles than WHO," Horton wrote. "But it is
to WHO that politicians turn when diseases threaten their people. And it is
WHO that is presently undergoing the sort of midlife crisis that the world
could well do without."

According to Horton, the WHO's "foolishly ambitious" goals regarding world
health have "thrown WHO into a period of bitter internal wrangling about
its purpose, its programs and the kind of goals that are genuinely within
its reach."

Although Brundtland has raised WHO's profile during her tenure, Horton
wrote, she has also "disappointed many rank-and-file public health workers"
by abandoning the "Health for All" goal without debate and trying to bring
market solutions to major health problems. The development of
public-private partnerships, according to Horton, has "brought
irreconcilable conflicts of interest," tarnishing WHO's "neutrality" by
allowing "experts" from companies to join in its work. Meanwhile, Horton
writes, Brundtland has done little on behalf of the poor and has been
unable to upgrade the organization's work in many countries.
Horton said the new WHO head must exercise leadership, have the courage to
hold donor governments accountable for their poor commitment to global
health, continue the effort to strengthen health systems across the globe,
especially in Africa, and develop policies to reduce major health risks.
"The secrecy surrounding WHO's election only reflects the lack of a wider
public conversation about the health of the world's most vulnerable
people," Horton said. "When it comes to global health, why doesn't the
world care who will lead it?" (Richard Horton, Boston Globe, Jan. 19).


Dr. Leela McCullough
Director of Information Services

SATELLIFE
30 California Street, Watertown, MA 02472, USA
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Email: leela@usa.healthnet.org
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