Advertisement

Ethiopia's Tedros wins race to head World Health Organisation

Tuesday May 23 2017
tedro

Ethiopia’s Tedros Adhanom has been elected as the new head of the UN's World Health Organisation. PHOTO | AFP

Ethiopia’s Tedros Adhanom has been elected as the new head of the UN's World Health Organisation.

The former Ethiopian foreign minister beat Britain's David Nabarro and Sania Nishtar of Pakistan in the race to lead the UN's public health body, replacing outgoing chief Margaret Chan of Hong Kong.

He won in the third round of voting.

He becomes the first African to lead the WHO.

The 52-year-old, who was also a health minister before taking up the Foreign Affairs portfolio, says he aims to replicate his success in turning around his country's healthcare system on the global stage.

His campaign focused on overhauling the WHO after its much-criticised handling of the West African Ebola epidemic, and speculation that the United States might cut its funding for the agency.

Advertisement

"We live in a changing world, and the WHO must be able to change with it," Tedros said in his vision statement, citing new health threats brought about through globalisation, climate change and unhealthy lifestyles.

A specialist in malaria with a doctorate from the University of Nottingham in Britain, Tedros was appointed Ethiopia's health minister in 2005 to 2012 where he oversaw a drive to expand basic healthcare by building thousands of clinics and boosting community-based health services.

The initiatives contributed to a two-thirds drop in child mortality between 1990 and 2015, and a 75 per cent drop in malaria deaths in the same period.

Tedros waged a high-profile campaign on social media after the WHO changed its rules to have the director-general elected in a popular vote by member states, instead of having the executive committee propose a single candidate.

In an interview published on his website, Tedros said he would push forward with reforms the WHO announced after the Ebola crisis, but would also try to improve the way it is funded to allow the organisation to be more responsive in health emergencies.

His priority would be "achieving universal health coverage".

In a last his final pitch to voters before the first ballots were cast, Tedros recalled the childhood death of his brother from a treatable sickness to underscore that universal healthcare for all would be a top priority.

tedros

Ethiopia's Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (centre), reacts after his speech before the delegates at the World Health Assembly (WHA) on May 23, 2017, in Geneva. PHOTO | AFP

The malaria specialist said he refused "to accept that people should die because they are poor".

Controversial choice

Tedros managed to fight off a last-minute controversy after an advisor to his British rival David Nabarro accused him of covering up three major outbreaks of cholera in Ethiopia, in an interview with The New York Times.

On Monday, a group of about 100 demonstrators gathered at the UN headquarters in Geneva to protest against his candidacy, saying he had played down the outbreaks, with disastrous consequences.

At one point they forced outgoing chief Margaret Chan to halt her speech in the assembly hall Monday, shouting "No Tedros at WHO".

The Ethiopian government has insisted that the deadly outbreaks were not cholera but Acute Watery Diarrhoea (AWD) — a symptom of the disease.

Officially declaring a cholera outbreak could have resulted in Ethiopia's trading partners rejecting its exports for fear of contamination, while also hurting tourism.

A new outbreak of AWD affecting more than 16,000 people in Ethiopia's Somali region was declared in April.

Tedros also faced pushback from Ethiopian opposition groups, who accused him of being complicit in a crackdown on anti-government protesters during his stint as Foreign minister from 2012 to 2016. They further said that his election would raise the diplomatic profile of a country accused of human rights violations.

WHO criticism

Chan

Outgoing WHO Director-General Margaret Chan. Her decade-long tenure ends on June 30, 2017. PHOTO | AFP

Chan's decade-long tenure which ends on June 30 was notably marred by condemnation of the agency's response to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.

The WHO was accused of missing key warning signs about the severity of an outbreak that began in December 2013 and ultimately killed more than 11,000 people.

"We know that the next health emergency is not a question of 'if' but 'when'," US health secretary Tom Price said in Geneva before voting started.

"When it happens the world will turn to the WHO for guidance and for leadership. We need to be sure it is up to the task," he told the Swiss Press Club.

The agency has 194 member states, but only 186 nations were eligible to cast ballots Tuesday because of no-shows and voting rights stripped because of unpaid UN dues.

The election marked the first time countries got to choose the WHO chief. Previously the executive committee offered just one candidate for states to rubber stamp.

'Big changes' needed

The WHO has already initiated a range of reforms since it faced crushing criticism over its response to the Ebola crisis, but experts say the new chief still faces a huge task.

"We need WHO to be more effective than it is today," the director of Harvard University's Global Health Institute, Ashish Jha, said at the Swiss Press Club event.
He highlighted transparency and accountability especially for WHO leadership as areas that need work.

Mark Dybul, who heads the Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, said Chan had "laid the foundations" for improvements, but added that "big, big changes need to be made".

He underscored "massive" coordination problems between regional offices and Geneva headquarters.

This was identified as a significant issue in the Ebola crisis, when the African office in Brazzaville was accused of not sounding the alarm.

Advertisement