The World Health Organization has come of age. Established as an organ of the United Nations Organization, she has achieved a lot in addressing the world health challenges as they crop up. WHO living up to her name, she has tried to balance the scale of disease control and its numerous organs or subsectors. It is pertinent to note that since WHO came onboard, the Africans who represent a focus significant global disease burden has consistently suffered under representaion in every aspect of the World Health Organization. The African continent lags behind lacking fair representaion and this means most of the time, while discussions on health challenges presented by the prevalence of many disease in Africa, the proverbial becomes our lot as the main frame fails to come on focus. That is why we all on one accord, welcome with joy, the appointment and emergence of Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus as the ipso facto Director General of the World Health Organization.
His appointment comes at a time when we were all seemingly relaxing on our oars as the diseases that presented a global challenge over the past 6 years aparently declined but suddenly relapsed with threatening alacrity. Ebola outbreak with its devastating consequences is being recorded in Central Africa and given the level of increasing transhuman development, fear now pervades the air that a continental pandemic might recur if co-ordinated actions are not put in place to check the current incidence. Dr. Ghebyreyesus therefore, has a lot on his hands. He has to rise to the occasion and demonstrate that the trust reposed in him is not in vain. The current Director General has other areas he has to beam his searchlight. Africa is under represented still in the WHO and particularly, in the PMNCH, a current resentative for Africa at the World Health Assembly is from Sri Lanka. This remains an abberration thuogh this discrepancy was incident on tribalism and bigotry among Africans. The Director General must therefore not ignore the fact and so should throw his lot to re-educate our people to learn to think out of the box. Dr. Ghebyreyesus has had a long career in the health care industry both at home and abroad and so he is no stranger to the enormous challenges waiting at his desk. Welcome, our new Director General.
Dr. Ikechukwu E. Onyekwelonwu MBBCH,
President, RCHC
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