Name: Dr MARGARET F C CHAN
MD, DSc (Canada),
FFPHM (UK),
MScPH (Singapore)

Nationality: Chinese

Age: 59

Summary of Professional Experience

Dr Margaret Chan is the Representative of the WHO Director-General for Pandemic Influenza and Assistant Director-General for Communicable Diseases. She has brought with her a wealth of experience and a global perspective in public health as a world renowned and highly respected public health official, with broad and in-depth international knowledge and experience in communicable diseases, health regulation (including regulation of food, drugs, pharmaceutical products and traditional Chinese medicines, and tobacco control), environmental health and chronic diseases.

As one of the world's most visionary and experienced public health crisis managers with first hand experience in dealing with new and emerging infectious disease, she has led global efforts to strengthen preparedness for human pandemic influenza over the last year in WHO. Two marked examples where Dr Chan fully demonstrated her outstanding leadership in combating the threat posed by new and emerging infectious disease are the H5N1 avian influenza outbreak and the SARS outbreak in Hong Kong in 1997 and in 2003 respectively.
In the H5N1 avian influenza outbreak in 1997, which was the world's first outbreak affecting both poultry and humans, Dr Chan's decisive actions, including the decision to cull about 1.5 million poultry, which were later to become the global standard for the control of avian influenza, effectively prevented the spread of the avian influenza to other countries. Dr Chan once again demonstrated her leadership in the management and control of the complex outbreak of SARS in 2003, which took Hong Kong, and indeed the world, by storm. Her unrivalled first hand experience made her the obvious choice to become WHO's first Representative of the Director-General for Pandemic Influenza.

Prior to the current appointment in 2005, Dr Chan directed the work of WHO in the Protection of the Human Environment, which encompassed aspects of human health and quality of life that are determined by physical, chemical, biological, social, and psychosocial factors in the environment. These included key areas of health related to water and sanitation, radiation and chemical safety, indoor and outdoor air pollution, and occupational health.

During her nine-year tenure as the Director of the Hong Kong Department of Health from 1994-2003, Dr Chan was involved in the formulation of public health policies and implementation of new initiatives. She took a strong interest in health advocacy and health promotion and was fully committed to improving the health of the community through universal access to free or affordable primary health care services.
She introduced preventive and promotive health care services for children, adolescents, women, men and the elderly. Other health policies that she formulated and implemented include disease surveillance and response, the training of public health physicians and other healthcare professionals, the improvement of public health laboratory capacities, the building up of an information system for making evidence-based policy options, the setting up of a regulatory framework for traditional Chinese medicine, and the establishment and strengthening of local and international collaboration.

Dr Chan also successfully demonstrated her managerial skills in both financial and human resource management as the head of the Department of Health running a complex organisation which consisted of 7,000 staff with a diverse cultural and professional background and a budget of nearly half a billion US dollars a year.
In addition to serving the community of Hong Kong, Dr Chan was also very active in international public health work and in the work of the WHO. She regularly attended regional and international meetings to further collaboration in public health between Hong Kong and other Member States of the WHO and in particular, those in the Western Pacific Region. In 1992, she organized and managed the 43rd Session of the Regional Committee for the Western Pacific, World Health Organization. In 1998, she was elected the Chairperson of the 49th Session of the Regional Committee for the Western Pacific, World Health Organization. In 1999, she was elected the Vice-Chairperson of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Working Group of the World Health Organization. In 2002, she was responsible for organizing the WHO International Conference of Drug Regulatory Authorities hosted by China and held in Hong Kong.

Her work in public health has been recognized and appreciated internationally. In 1997 she was awarded an OBE by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. In the same year she was conferred, by distinction, Fellowship of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of the United Kingdom. In 1999, His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand, conferred on her the Prince Mahidol Award in the field of public health for her leadership in the control of the outbreak of avian influenza in Hong Kong. In the same year she was granted an honorary degree of Doctor of Science, for her contribution to public health, by her alma mater, the University of Western Ontario, Canada.

Dr Chan received her B.A. and M.D. degrees from the University of Western Ontario, Canada in 1973 and 1977 respectively. She undertook postgraduate training in public health at the Singapore National University where she obtained her Master of Science degree in 1985. In 1991 she attended a full-time programme for management development at the Harvard Business School. She also attended training courses in Tsinghua University and the National School of Administration in Beijing, China in 1996 and 2000 respectively.
Dr Chan is fluent in English and Chinese. Born in Hong Kong in 1947, she is married with one son, and is in excellent health.