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WHO World Health Organization |
Dr Jong-Wook Lee of the Republic of Korea was elected on 21
May 2003 as the next Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO).
Dr Lee was 
elected
by the World Health Assembly, which brought together all 192 Member States of
WHO.
Dr Jong-Wook Lee was born on 12 April 1945, in Seoul. He received a Medical Doctor degree (M.D.) from Seoul National University and a Master of Public Health degree from the University of Hawaii. He has worked at WHO for 19 years, notably leading the fight against two of the greatest challenges to health and development: tuberculosis and vaccine preventable diseases of children. After heading the WHO Global Programme for Vaccines and Immunizations and serving as a Senior Policy Advisor, he became, in 2000, Director of the Stop TB programme, a coalition of more than 250 international partners including WHO member states, donors, non-governmental organizations, industry and foundations. Dr Lee is married and has one son. He speaks English, Korean and Japanese, and reads French and Chinese.
Dr Lee will take office and begin his five-year term on 21 July, 2003. He will succeed Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland who has been WHO Director-General since July 1998.
In his acceptance speech to the Assembly Dr Lee announced that he would immediately expand and strengthen the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network to identify and respond to disease outbreaks around the world. "SARS is the first new disease threat of the 21st century, but it will not be the last one", he said.
There is an urgent need for "stronger disease surveillance and response mechanisms at local, national, and global levels", said Dr Lee, who recently travelled to China to see for himself the problem posed by SARS and how it is being tackled. Substantial funding has already been committed, he added, and 90% of the resources will go to build disease surveillance capacity at country and regional levels.
In his speech, Dr Lee praised the dedication and commitment of Dr Carlo Urbani, a WHO colleague who first identified SARS in Hanoi and subsequently died of the disease. "Carlo Urbani has given us an image of WHO at its best", said Dr Lee. "Not pushing paper, but pushing back the assault of poverty and disease".
He recalled the commitment of the WHO Constitution to work for the highest attainable standard of health for every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief or economic or social condition. "These commitments are not naive", Dr Lee said. "They emerged from the most destructive war the world has ever seen".
Dr Lee said his five key priority areas will be: meeting the health targets of the Millennium Development Goals; shifting resources to serve countries more effectively; running WHO more efficiently; ensuring that WHO becomes more accountable, both financially and in its contribution to health outcomes; and strengthening human resources both inside WHO and within Member States.
He concluded his speech with a call for wide participation and urgent action: "In my work at WHO and as a physician before joining the staff, I learned the value of listening... Sharing ideas will be vital in the coming months. But our final test lies in action. Let us unite our strength for the work ahead".
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The 7th meeting of the High Level Working Group (HLWG) on Tuberculosis in the Russian Federation was opened by Ms Olga Sharapova, Deputy Minister of Health on 14 May 2003. This time the HLWG members and the participants greeted a new HLWG member, Dr Mario Raviglione, Acting Director of Stop TB Programme in WHO Headquarters and a successor of Dr J. W. Lee who has been elected as the WHO Director-General.
The
discussion and approval of the report on the HLWG activities in 2002, the workplan
for 2003 and revision of the HLWG Statute were the main items on the agenda.
The national and international partners were informed that the new Executive
Order (Prikaz) of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation "On Improvement
of TB Control Activities in the Russian Federation" (No 109 dated 21.03.03)
had been issued, being a fundamental achievement of the joint efforts by the
Ministries of Health and Justice of the Russian Federation, the leading TB Research
Institutes, WHO and international experts.
The HLWG workplan for 2003 highlights a wide range of activities focused on the development of new recommendations by Thematic Working Groups (TWGs). A number of newly established working groups will enable to cover such essential issues as training and education, evaluation of international TB control programmes implemented in Russia, TB monitoring, social support for TB patients, etc.
Following the Resolution of the Interagency Coordination Committee Meeting held in September 2002, work on the establishment of the ICC started from revising the HLWG Statute and forming the ICC Advisory Board. The Statute of the HLWG describes the structure, functions and pattern of work of the HLWG and ICC, which is an integral part of the High Level Working Group. The modified version was discussed and approved by the HLWG members.
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The WHO TB Control Programme prioritizes activities on training and education, hence participating in the meetings of the Collaborative for Training and Education for TB in Russia, the Baltic States and the NIS aiming at strengthening the framework for improved co-ordination and efficiency of donor-funded TB training activities. Twice a year representatives of WHO, USAID, CDC, Royal Netherlands Tuberculosis Association (KNCV), Project "HOPE", MSF, Open Health Institute (former OSI), New Jersey Medi-cal School, National TB Center, IFRC, American Red Cross, etc. meet to update on the performed training activities, conferences, developed materials as well as to identify gaps in training of TB specialists and needs for new materials and guidelines.
The 7th meeting of the Collaborative was held in Geneva, 7-8 May 2003, where a WHO TB Control Programme representative updated on the development and constraints of keeping TB library, which was created following the decision of the 1st meeting of the Collaborative in March 2000. Initially it’s aim was to collect information about the materials on TB either originally developed in Russian or translated from English in order to avoid overlaps of efforts. Gradually the activities expanded to selection of the relevant and most recent materials for translation into Russian, editing, printing and further distribution among TB specialists. The present TB Library contains TB guidelines and recommendations, training and educational materials, reference papers, project documentation, Russian legal and regulatory documents and other materials. Many of the materials are kept in the electronic format, as printed books, Internet links, etc. Information of the source of the product is available.
The lists of TB Library materials are circulated among Russian and international partners to share information about the collection of books available and get the feedback. To encourage the broadest possible awareness and accessibility of the Library’s collections, there are plans to develop a virtual TB library for the benefit of the national and international TB communities.
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For the first time since 1999 the Russian TB doctors gathered together during the VII Russian Congress of Phthisiatricians organized by the Russian Society of Phthisiopulmonologists on 3-5 June 2003. 1003 leading national TB specialists and international experts from WHO, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), charity organization "Partners in Health" (PIH), International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), etc. were invited to share the recent trends in TB epidemiology, TB management, laboratory diagnosis, training and education with Russian colleagues.
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According to the reports to the WHO Surveillance Programme for Control of Foodborne infections and intoxications in Europe, more than 70% of the outbreaks caused by food are due to Salmonellosis. More than 80% of the investigated outbreaks are directly related to the consumption insufficiently cooked eggs or foods containing raw eggs such as, mayonnaise, ice creams or cream pastry fillings.
To address this problem training on Salmonella surveillance
was organized 26-30 May by the WHO Global Salmonella Survey Programme, the Centers
of Diseases
Control, the Danish Veterinary Institute, WHO Collaborating Center of Zoonoses
at the Moscow Medical Sechenov Academy.
The course was taught in Russian and in addition to participants from the Russian Federation was attended by microbiologists from national clinical, veterinary and food reference laboratories from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.
The participants of the course got the latest information on:
– standardized laboratory methods for the isolation, identification and antimicrobial susceptibility testing of foodborne Salmonella;
– interpretation of results;
– use of laboratory-based data for the surveillance of foodborne diseases and antimicrobial resistance.
You may feel a little bit more secure now when this summer you are licking an ice-cream on a hot day.
More information about the courses can be found at:
http://www.who.int/emc/diseases/zoo/SALM-SURV/training_courses.html
http://www.euro.who.int/eprise/main/WHO/Progs/FOS/Surveillance/20030224_5