Margaret Chan

Hong Kong Department of Health and the 1997 Avian Flu

Margaret Chan (Chinese name Chan Fung Fu-chun) was born in Hong Kong in 1947. She studied at Northcote College of Education in Hong Kong before pursuing further studies at the University of Western Ontario in Canada, earning a bachelor's degree in 1973 and a medical degree in 1977. She joined the Hong Kong Department of Health in 1978 and became Director of Health in June 1994, the first woman to hold the post. In late 1997, Hong Kong recorded the world's first cases of human infection with H5N1 avian influenza, with 18 people infected and six deaths; on 28 December that year she ordered the culling of Hong Kong's entire poultry population, about 1.5 million birds, successfully halting further human-to-human transmission of the virus. No further cases emerged in Hong Kong afterward, and the decisive measure went on to become an international standard for avian flu containment.

The SARS Response

During the 2003 SARS outbreak, Chan led Hong Kong's public health response. Hong Kong recorded 1,755 confirmed cases and 299 deaths during the epidemic, making it one of the most severely affected jurisdictions. She oversaw the establishment of Hong Kong's quarantine and contact-tracing systems and coordinated actively with the WHO and the international community.

Director-General of the World Health Organization

After 2003, Chan joined the World Health Organization, holding senior posts in its infectious disease departments. In November 2006 she was elected Director-General of the WHO, taking office in January 2007 — the first Chinese national to head a United Nations specialized agency; she was re-elected in May 2012 and served until stepping down in June 2017, when she was succeeded by Ethiopia's Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. During her tenure she led the response to several global public health crises, including the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic and the 2014–2016 West Africa Ebola outbreak, and made universal health coverage a central item on the WHO's agenda. The WHO's early response to Ebola was widely criticized as slow and inadequate, and Chan later acknowledged in public remarks that the response had been mishandled and that she bore personal responsibility; in 2017, an Associated Press investigation reported that she had spent more than $370,000 on personal travel in a single year, including frequent first-class flights and presidential-suite hotel stays, prompting scrutiny of WHO travel spending.

After the WHO

After leaving the WHO, Chan served as a standing committee member of the 13th CPPCC National Committee and chief advisor to the State Council's leading group on deepening reform of the medical and health care system. From July 2018 she has chaired the Boao Forum for Asia's Global Health Forum, and in 2020 she became the founding dean of Tsinghua University's Vanke School of Public Health, additionally chairing the academic committee of Tsinghua's Institute for Healthy China from 2021.