Pakistan’s Sania Nishtar eliminated in vote for top WHO post

GENEVA: Ethiopia’s Tedros Adhanom was elected as the new head of the powerful World Health Organization on Tuesday, beating out Britain’s David Nabarro and Sania Nishtar of Pakistan in the race to lead the UN’s public health body.

Dr Sania Nishtar, a former federal minister and prominent global health leader with extensive experience in public healthcare, was among the three candidates nominated for the post of director general WHO. 

Jubilant supporters, including one waving an Ethiopian flag, surrounded 52-year-old malaria specialist Tedros Adhanom after the final result was announced in the assembly hall at the UN’s Geneva headquarters.

Tedros will take over on July 1, succeeding Margaret Chan, a Hong Kong native whose decade-long tenure was marred by the agency’s fiercely criticised response to the Ebola epidemic in west Africa.

In his first remarks as WHO’s director general-elect, Tedros vowed to "reclaim... trust from member states and from every citizen in the world".

He said delivering universal healthcare, especially to the world’s most impoverished, would be his top priority.

In a speech before voting started, Tedros had said he refused "to accept that people should die because they are poor."