WHO to choose new director-general from 5 candidates

watch video

Margaret Chan, China's candidate to head the WHO, led the votes as the executive board of the UN health agency cut the field from eleven to a short-list of five. The other four candidates are Shigeru Omi of Japan, Mexico's Health Minister Julio Frenk, Spain's Health Minister Elena Salgado, and Kuwait's Kazem Behbehani. All are bidding to succeed South Korea's Lee Jong-wook, who died suddenly in May after suffering a stroke.

59-year-old Chan has stepped aside as the WHO's top official on bird flu and pandemic influenza to run for director-general. During her nine years as head of Hong Kong's health department, she has won praise for fighting the world's first outbreak of bird flu in 1997, and later for battling SARS.

If Chan wins the vote, it will be the first time a Chinese candidate takes the top job in one of the UN's major agencies.

Editor:Sun Luying