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GENEVA: Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the primary African to go the World Well being Group, was re-elected Tuesday with overwhelming help after operating unopposed for a second time period.
The director-general had acquired greater than two-thirds of secret-ballot votes solid, as wanted to be appointed, however the UN well being company didn’t present a exact breakdown.
Sources within the room mentioned he had acquired 155 of the 160 votes solid.
“I’m actually, actually overwhelmed by the help,” Tedros informed the meeting after his re-election was introduced to thundering applause.
“This recognition shouldn’t be just for me. I actually imagine that is recognition for the entire WHO household. I’m actually proud to be WHO.”
Tedros has develop into a well-known face as he spearheads the worldwide response to the coronavirus pandemic — a difficulty that continues to be entrance and centre on the WHO’s annual meeting going down in Geneva this week.
The Ethiopian former minister of well being and of overseas affairs has additionally more and more been sounding the alarm over the heavy toll that conflicts just like the warfare in Ukraine are taking over world well being.
“Extra even than pandemics, warfare shakes and shatters the foundations on which beforehand secure societies stood,” the 57-year-old malaria knowledgeable mentioned on the primary day of the World Well being Meeting on Sunday.
“And it leaves psychological scars that may take years or many years to heal,” he mentioned, stressing his first-hand experiences.
“I’m a baby of warfare,” he mentioned, the emotion palpable in his voice.
– ‘Ache and loss’ –
In 1998, when warfare returned to Ethiopia, “I felt the identical worry as a dad or mum myself… and my kids needed to cover in a bunker to shelter from the bombardment.”
And, he mentioned, “I really feel the identical ache and loss once more now,” with the battle that has been raging in his dwelling area of Tigray since late 2020.
“Not solely a baby of warfare, however following me all through,” mentioned Tedros.
The worldwide neighborhood can’t correctly tackle the mountain of well being emergencies and challenges we face, together with the Covid-19 disaster and rising pandemic threats, “in a divided world”.
Peace “is a prerequisite for well being”, he added.
That could be a message he’s wanting to push as he prepares to tackle a second five-year time period from August 16.
– Turbulent –
His first time period in workplace was turbulent, as he grappled not solely with the worldwide response to the pandemic but additionally an extended line of different crises, together with a sexual abuse scandal involving WHO employees within the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Whereas Tedros has confronted his share of criticism, he has acquired broad backing.
African nations particularly have been happy on the consideration paid to the continent and at his relentless marketing campaign for poorer nations to obtain a fair proportion of Covid vaccines.
Since US President Joe Biden’s arrival within the White Home, Tedros has additionally loved help in Washington.
That marked a serious about-face from the beginning of the pandemic, when Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump started pulling the US out of the WHO, accusing it of being Beijing’s puppet and serving to cowl up the preliminary Covid outbreak.
Satirically, the primary supply of opposition has come from Tedros’s personal nation.
Angered by his feedback in regards to the dire humanitarian state of affairs in Tigray, Ethiopia’s authorities accused him of getting “abused his workplace” to advance propaganda.
However these arguments appear to have had little traction, and Tedros can now head into his second time period with a powerful mandate.
There isn’t a scarcity of challenges forward, with the Covid-19 pandemic nonetheless raging and calls for for dramatic reforms of the complete world well being system to assist avert comparable threats going ahead.
And new well being menaces already loom, together with hepatitis of mysterious origin that has made kids in lots of international locations in poor health, and swelling numbers of monkeypox instances removed from Central and West Africa the place the illness is often concentrated.
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