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
The possible impact of the virus [Zika] an extraordinary event and a public health threat to other parts of the world.
New diseases like SARS and bird flu cause anxiety in the community. People get worried, some to the extent that it even affects their health. You feel very sad, and yet you must carry on and maintain your cool in very trying and difficult moments. You have to tough it out.
When WHO works with the private sector, the Organization takes all possible measures to ensure its work to develop policy and guidelines is protected from industry influence.
Many diseases including malaria, dengue, meningitis - just a few examples - these are what we call climate-sensitive diseases, because such climate dimensions for rainfall, humidity and temperature would influence the epidemics, the outbreaks, either directly influencing the parasites or the mosquitoes that carry them.
Maternal mortality health is a very sensitive indicator. All you need to look at is a country's maternal mortality rate. That is a surrogate for whether the country's health system is functioning. If it works for women, I'm sure it will work for men.
For a pandemic of moderate severity, this is one of our greatest challenges: helping people to understand when they do not need to worry, and when they do need to seek urgent care.
Pandemic influenza is by nature an international issue; it requires an international solution.
Mexico is a safe, as well as a beautiful and warmly gracious, place to visit.
We should never forget the government should be held accountable for providing services.
After all it really is all of humanity that is under threat during a pandemic.
All countries should immediately now activate their pandemic preparedness plans. Countries should remain on high alert for unusual outbreaks of influenza-like illness and severe pneumonia.
Geneva is a city where the living conditions and hospitality provided by both the population and authorities of Geneva - at all levels - are exemplary and greatly facilitate the work and daily life of WHO employees.
The multiple roles that women can play in a society if given the opportunity is really a tremendous asset.
Doctors and nurses, with their training and their experiences, they would be able to detect unusual patterns of disease. That's why we say it is important for every country to have a proper surveillance system. The function of the surveillance system is to detect unusual patterns of diseases.