MONDAY INFLUENTIAL: MAGARET CHAN

Dr Margaret Chan is the 7^th Director General of World Health Organization. She is 68 years old and has contributed immensely to the world health system through he numerous initiatives in combating epidemic outbreaks around the world.

NAME: Dr Margaret Chan OBE MD, DSc, MScPH, FFPHM, JP

She is the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO). 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 (1994–2003), representative of the WHO Director-General for Pandemic Influenza and WHO Assistant Director-General for Communicable Diseases (2003–2006). As of 2014, she is ranked as the 30th most powerful woman in the world according to Forbes.

D.O.B: August 21 1947 in Hong Kong.

NATIONALITY: Hong Kong Chinese

EARLY CHILDHOOD & ACADEMIC PROFILE: Margaret Chan was initially trained as a Home Economics teacher at the Northcote College of Education in Hong Kong. She then earned her BA degree in Home Economics^[5] and her MD degree at the University of Western Ontario in 1973 and 1977, respectively, as well as her MSc (Public Health) degree at the National University of Singapore in 1985. Chan completed the Program for Management Development (PMD 61) at Harvard Business School in 1991. In 1997, she was given the distinction for the Fellowship of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians of the United Kingdom and was also appointed as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth.

OCCUPATION: 7th Director General of the World Health Organization

CAREER ACHIEVEMENTS:

·         Her profile was raised by her handling, in those positions, of the 1997 H5N1 avian influenza outbreak and the 2003 SARS outbreak in Hong Kong. After the first victim of the H5N1.

·         In 2014, she was ranked as the 30th most powerful woman in the world, based on her position as Director-General, by Forbes. Her ranking increased from 33rd in 2013.

·         Leader of the global health organization responsible for eradicating communicable diseases, including HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and other vaccine-preventable diseases, Chan is widely viewed as having fallen flat in her efforts to combat Ebola.

Appointed to the post of WHO Director-General ln November 2006, her first term ran through to June 2012

BOOKS AUTHORED:

·         Ritual Is Theatre, Theatre Is Ritual; Tang-Ki: Chinese Spirit Medium Worship by Margaret Chan (Jan 1, 2006)

·         Margaret Chan's foodstops by Margaret Chan (1992)

CONTROVERSY: In February 2007, Chan provoked the anger of humanitarian and civil society groups by questioning the quality of generic medicines while on a visit to Thailand.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"If you want to achieve greatness stop asking for permission." –Anonymous

DID YOU KNOW?

·         There are more living organisms on the skin of a single human being than there are human beings on the surface of the earth.

·         From the age of thirty, humans gradually begin to shrink in size.

·         Your body contains enough iron to make a spike strong enough to hold your weight