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
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.
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.
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.
Antimicrobial resistance is on the rise in Europe and elsewhere in the world. We are losing our first-line antimicrobials. Replacement treatments are more costly, more toxic, need much longer durations of treatment, and may require treatment in intensive care units.
A severe disease that transmits easily will leave very little international surge capacity as most countries will need their own staff and resources to combat the outbreak in their territories.
I must stress that it is still a suspected case at this stage and the experts are still investigating,
The International Health Partnership Plus is addressing the need to harmonize development assistance and reduce the current waste, duplication, and high transaction costs.
When is the next time? We don't have a time frame. I suspect it will likely to be November, if history is anything to go by.
During the past week, indeed new confirmed cases have shown a downward trend. The situation has stabilized, ... Our estimation is that this is a result achieved through concerted efforts from all quarters.
While we cannot predict when or if the H5N1 virus might spark a pandemic, we cannot ignore the warning signs, ... For the first time in human history, we have a chance to prepare ourselves for a pandemic before it arrives.
We cannot think of the old days when we were dealing with SARS. It's a totally different ballgame now.
With increased surveillance its not unusual that you would pick up more cases.
Based on assessment of all available information and following several expert consultations, I have decided to raise the current level of influenza pandemic alert from phase 4 to phase 5.
Concern has mounted progressively, and events in recent weeks justify that concern.