Lancet Features WHO Director General Candidates’ Answers to 10-Question Survey; Public Forum To be Broadcast Worldwide
The Jan. 18 issue of the Lancet presents a special report in which the eight World Health Organization director general candidates answer a 10-question survey presented to them by the journal. The WHO Executive Board is scheduled to meet in Geneva on Jan. 27 to choose a final candidate (Horton, Lancet, 1/18). The eight candidates include Mozambique Prime Minister Pascoal Mocumbi; UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot; Mexico Minister of Health Julio Frenk Mora; Senegal Minister of Health Awa Marie Coll-Seck; Jong-Wook Lee, director of WHO's Stop TB program; Lebanon Alternate Minister of Health Karam Karam; Egypt's former Minister of Health and Population Ismail Sallam; and former Cook Islands Prime Minister Joseph Williams. A ninth candidate, Djamil Fareed, adviser to the minister of health of Mauritius, withdrew this week (Lancet, 1/18). Lancet Editor Richard Horton states in an editor's note that Mocumbi, Piot and Frenk are the leading candidates for the position (Lancet, 1/18). The Jan. 18 issue of BMJ also features the candidates' responses to a list of questions regarding international health and WHO priorities (BMJ, 1/18).
Candidate Forum To Be Satellite-Broadcast
On Sunday, the director general candidates will participate in a two-hour question and answer session that will be open to the public and satellite-broadcast via video and teleconferencing to sites in Brazil, Ethiopia, India, Japan, United Kingdom, South Africa and the United States. The candidates will answer questions from public health officials, non-governmental organizations and other health care leaders from around the world. The 192 WHO member states at the next general assembly meeting in May will vote to approve a single candidate, who will be nominated by the Executive Board. The event is being organized by the Interacative Health Network's World Health Channel with support from Exchange. Other supporting organizations include NGO Forum for Health; the International eHealth Association; Canal Saude; Brazil's health channel; Global Health Council; People's Health Movement; Academy of International Health Philanthropy; and the International Hospital Federation (Interactive Health Network release, 1/15).
Kaisernetwork.org's HealthCast will Web cast the event live online on Sunday, Jan. 19, beginning at 9 a.m. Additional information is available online at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/healthcast/who/19jan03.