The World Health Organization Executive Board, currently holding its 134th session in Geneva, Switzerland, has appointed Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh as the new WHO Regional Director for South-East Asia.
Dr Singh will take up her new post on 1 February 2014, succeeding Dr Samlee Plianbangchang who has served as SEARO Regional Director for the past 10 years.
All the WHO Regions warmly welcomed Dr Singh in this important assignment and expressed confidence that she has all the necessary professional qualifications and experience, including at the global level, to effectively address health challenges in the South-East Asia Region of WHO.
Speaking on behalf of the Government of India, Mr C.K. Mishra, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, whole-heartedly thanked all the members of WHO Executive Board and Member States of the WHO’s South-East Asia Region for confidently entrusting Dr Singh with the leadership of this Region, acknowledging that it has been 44 years since an Indian has led this important WHO Region.
Mr Mishra also thanked Dr Samlee, the outgoing Regional Director of South-East Asia Region for public health accomplishments achieved under his leadership.
In her acceptance speech, Dr Singh said, “We must be guided, above all else by the needs of our constituents. This is our core mandate and, together with Member States, we must define and deliver on country priorities.”
In this context, she said, “The South-East Asia Region has some of the best public health experts, state of the art medical facilities, frontline centres of excellence and a leading international pharmaceutical industry that is already improving the health of populations within and beyond the Region. There is significant potential here to make further contributions to global health and an important opportunity for WHO’s collaboration.”
“I am steadfast in my resolve to bring change, to explore new avenues and to build partnerships for a technically sound, committed and dynamic effort to meet each and every public health challenge in South-East Asia,” she added.
Welcoming the appointment, Dr Nata Menabde, WHO Representative to India, said,” Dr Singh brings a vast repertoire of knowledge and experience of the health sector. Those of us who have worked closely with her know for sure that she will add a new dynamism to the health sector in the region.”
Speaking about her new role, Dr Singh said that the Region is undergoing unprecedented economic, demographic and epidemiological transition and requires a bold strategy to address the unfinished agenda of MDG 4, 5 and 6, noncommunicable diseases, health systems and emergencies, with a strong SEARO at the helm.
“We need to garner and consolidate support from all health-related sectors and partners in what I believe, must and can be a new era of universal development of health,” she said.
In her acceptance speech, Dr Singh congratulated India for its landmark achievement in becoming polio free.
“This is a historical milestone and the Region looks forward to the certification of polio eradication,” she said.
Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, an Indian national, was until recently Deputy Regional Director for WHO’s South-East Asia Region. She served for over two decades as a civil servant in India as a member of the Indian Administrative Services, where among several important assignments she was the Health Secretary of Punjab. She then moved to the Health, Population and Nutrition Department of the World Bank. In 1998 she began her WHO career as an Executive Director in WHO Director-General Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland’s cabinet in Geneva. After retiring from WHO in February 2013, she worked as an Advisor on International Health to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India.