Kathmandu: Saima Wazed has been elected as Regional Director for WHO South-East Asia in a voting by member countries during a closed meeting in New Delhi. While Wazed secured eight votes, Dr Shambhu Acharya, Nepal’s candidate, got two votes.
Dr Acharya has congratulated Saima Wazed for her election as Regional Director. “As a public health leader I would continue to work for public health and extend hands to support in anyway I can,” he wrote on social media.
Saima Wazed is the daughter of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Dr Acharya is the senior-most official of the WHO. While Hasina rigorously lobbied with world leaders to make her daughter the WHO SEARO, from Nepal’s side, none of the ministers, including Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, were seen to make any visible efforts to appeal to the member states to vote for the candidate they themselves had proposed.
Leaders from Rastriya Swatantra Party, Kathmandu’s civil society members and other public health professionals had strongly advocated for the election of Dr Acharya for the South-East Asia region.
The government of Nepal had proposed Dr Acharya as the candidate for WHO SEARO through a cabinet decision in August this year.
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