Margaret Chan
Margaret Chan
Margaret Chan Fung Fu-chun, OBE, JPis a Hong Kong Chinese and Canadian physician, who serves as the Director-General of the World Health Organizationfor 2006–17. Chan was elected by the Executive Board of WHO on 8 November 2006, and was endorsed in a special meeting of the World Health Assembly on the following day. Chan has previously served as Director of Health in the Hong Kong Government, representative of the WHO Director-General for Pandemic Influenza and WHO Assistant Director-General for Communicable...
NationalityChinese
ProfessionPublic Servant
CountryChina
admit business exist good improve overall partner positive proactive room
I think U.N. organizations are important organizations. They exist for good reasons. And we also admit that there is room for us to improve the way we do business. The WHO will be a very positive and proactive partner in the overall U.N. reform, which is also important.
community country handle pandemic understand work
We must understand that when one country is not safe, the world is not safe. Pandemic influenza, by nature, will go around the world, so it is important for us to work as an international community to get a better handle on the issue.
close country developing follow health ministry national nearly negotiate office offices partners plans priorities staff strategies strengthen
WHO has a country office in nearly every developing country, usually located close to the Ministry of Health. Staff in these offices need to do much more to help ministries of health strengthen their national health plans and strategies and then negotiate with development partners to support these priorities and follow these plans.
community everybody health public time together
That was a time when we were really working together as an international community of academics, politicians, public health experts. Everybody really was so focused,
act contain maximum opportunity possible time
Time is of the essence. We must act now if we are to have the maximum possible opportunity to contain a pandemic.
severity timing
Timing is unpredictable and the severity is uncertain.
animal disease pandemic
We are not in a pandemic situation. It is still an animal disease.
ask coming country doctors invested number nurses people serve
If the country has invested in the training of doctors or nurses or midwives for that matter, people are beginning to say, 'Should we not ask them to serve a number of years in the country who invested in their training?' I think this is now coming to be an interesting discussion.
collective coming cooperation emerging global needs requires
New and emerging infections keep coming back and the world needs a collective defense system, and that requires international cooperation and collaboration, in the name of global solidarity.
alone countries dire health million needs report situation terms
The World Health Organization did a world health report in 2006. In the whole world about 60 countries are in dire situation in terms of having enough doctors. And many of these countries are in Sub-Saharan Africa. You know, that part of the world alone needs one million doctors.
further pandemic phase until
Until we see further evidence, we are still at Phase 3 of the pandemic alert,
build compliance countries degree health help high support voluntary
There is a high degree of support for voluntary compliance with the International Health Regulations. It will help countries to build capacity.
animal assessment disease endemic expanding given pandemic primarily risk scope severity timing
H5N1 is primarily an animal disease. However, given its expanding geographical scope and that H5N1 is endemic in some countries, our assessment is that the risk of pandemic is great. Timing is unpredictable and the severity is uncertain.
capacity compared encouraged few fill gaps human laboratory last months terms work
I am encouraged that more work has been done in the last few months compared to before. But still there are many gaps that we need to fill in terms of human and laboratory capacity and infrastructure.