WHO reappoints Tedros Ghebreyesus for second term as DG

By Nneka Nwogwugwu

The World Health Organization has said that its director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, is running unopposed for a second five-year term.

Tedros, 56, the first African to head the United Nations health agency, has overseen its complex response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has overshadowed his tenure. Trained in biology and infectious diseases with a doctorate in community health, he is also the first WHO chief who is not a medical doctor.

A former health and foreign minister from Ethiopia, Tedros – who goes by his first name – received a strong endorsement when France and Germany announced their support for him shortly after the nomination period closed.

Germany and Spain’s nominations said strengthening the WHO in the wake of the pandemic “must continue with full and undivided commitment”, saying the organisation needed “strong, pragmatic and visionary leadership”.

Tedros has repeatedly aired concerns about the deadly Tigray conflict in Ethiopia, and the Ethiopian government shunned his candidacy over his criticism and positions in the former Tigrayan-dominated national government. It has accused him of supporting the rival Tigray forces.

Moreover, his leadership was criticised by former US President Donald Trump, who began pulling the United States out of the WHO, accusing it of being Beijing’s puppet and covering up the outbreak of the virus.

Trump’s successor Joe Biden halted the withdrawal, while Tedros has also irked China by demanding greater transparency over the pandemic outbreak and putting a renewed focus on the possibility that it may have leaked from a Wuhan laboratory.

Tedros has also been a leading voice urging wealthy countries with large COVID-19 vaccine stockpiles and the big pharmaceutical companies that make them do more to improve access to the jabs in the developing world – a call that has largely gone unheeded.

He has also called for a moratorium on booster shots so that more doses could be made available quicker to poorer countries, which has also mostly fallen on deaf ears.