CoronaVirus: Covid-19

The Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, today met President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China in Beijing. They shared the latest information on the novel coronavirus 2019 (2019-nCoV) outbreak and reiterated their commitment to bring it under control.

Professor Dr Maha El Rabbat is a former Minister of Health and Population of Egypt and Executive Director of the Middle East and North Africa Health Policy Forum. She has accumulated more than 30 years of strategic leadership, policy, academic, advocacy and operational expertise, working closely with national, regional, and international organizations as a public health expert on a wide range of health issues, including: health system strengthening and governance reform; HTA; maternal, child and reproductive health; hepatitis C; emerging diseases; non-communicable diseases; and other public health priorities in various contexts, such as deprived areas and among vulnerable groups. She has extensive experience in conducting system-wide assessments and reform in response to emerging needs such as the Avian Flu, Swine Flu and Hepatitis C, HIV and supported strengthening of service delivery at different levels.

He was Special Representative of the WHO Director-General for Health Action in Crises (2002-2005). He was then appointed as UN System Senior Coordinator for Avian and Pandemic Influenza (2005-2014), United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Food Security and Nutrition (2008-2014), Coordinator of the Movement for Scaling Up Nutrition (2011-2014, as Assistant Secretary-General), UN S-G’s Special Envoy for the West Africa Ebola Outbreak Response (2014-2015), and UN S-G’s Special Adviser for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Climate Change (2016 - 2017,as Under-Secretary-General)). He was appointed, by the Director-General of WHO, as chair of the expert group on the reform of WHO’s work on outbreaks and emergencies in 2015.