Chinese bird-flu expert selected to lead WHO

GENEVA — Dr. Margaret Chan, who spearheaded the World Health Organization's (WHO) fight against bird flu, was chosen Wednesday to head the agency, becoming the first Chinese to win such a high-profile United Nations post.

Her position wields great power in allocating billions of dollars to fight polio, AIDS and other global scourges.

Chan, 59, was Hong Kong's health director when the city reported the world's first-known human outbreak of the H5N1 bird flu virus in 1997. Six people died, but Chan was credited with heading off a major health crisis by ordering the slaughter of Hong Kong's entire poultry population — about 1.5 million birds — in three days.

She also received international praise for organizing Hong Kong's response to a 2003 outbreak of SARS — or severe acute respiratory syndrome — which killed several hundred people.

Chan will officially be appointed the next director-general if she gains a two-thirds majority at a special session Thursday of the agency's governing World Health Assembly, comprising all 193 member countries.

Chan was chosen over four other candidates on the short list in a tight race to fill the post vacated by the death in May of Dr. Lee Jong-wook.

Also

Japan said Wednesday that China should shoulder a larger share of U.N. dues to better reflect its growing economic might and clout within the world body. Japan, seeking to lower its own contributions, submitted a proposal to a U.N. committee Tuesday in New York that would increase China's share of annual U.N. contributions to 3.9 percent for three years beginning in 2007 from the 2.1 percent it is paying in 2006. Payments by Japan, the second-largest contributor to the world body after the United States, would fall to 15.3 percent from 19.5 percent in 2006.