It’s been a year since the World Health Organisation (WHO) appointed its first African boss, when Ethiopia’s Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus replaced Margaret Chan.
Tedros has a clear mandate: transform the WHO into a performing organisation after its dismal failure to control the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014-2015, which killed 11 000 people, and the Zika virus in Brazil in 2015.
And as if on cue, just three weeks before Tedros hosted his first world health assembly in Geneva, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) experienced a new outbreak of Ebola. This time the WHO reacted quickly and efficiently. “I am proud of our response,” said Tedros in his opening speech, thanking his staff and nongovernmental organisation partners such as Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and the Red Cross. ….more