AP Exclusive: Outgoing WHO head practiced art of appeasement

LONDON (AP) — As the World Health Organization struggled to coordinate vaccine production during the 2009 swine flu pandemic, its director-general met with Vladimir Putin, then Russia's prime minister, during an official visit to Moscow.

The job of directing WHO carries exceptional power, from declaring when a health crisis has evolved into a global emergency to signing off on medical recommendations that affect billions of people.

In juggling competing demands from constituents — including member countries, agency staffers, other U.N. heads and private partners — the job requires political savvy as much as medical expertise.

Chan's multiple visits to authoritarian countries have raised some eyebrows, since no obvious health crises prompted the trips and spending time with leaders with patchy human rights records might have compromised the agency's integrity.

After applauding the government's "notable public health achievements," including its "excellent" tuberculosis treatment and "good immunization coverage," Chan opened the telemedicine facilities at the Kimanyu hospital that WHO helped support.

Three years later, WHO's representative to North Korea, Yonas Tegegn, confirmed in an email that WHO would be giving the country another $400,000 worth of telemedicine equipment and support, as well as considering a request to help fund a documentary promoting the project.

A UNICEF report in 2014 found that child death rates were high in Turkmenistan and noted a worrying rise of vitamin A deficiency in children.

Piot described numerous uncomfortable situations he faced at the height of the AIDS epidemic while discussing homosexuality with African leaders such as Zimbabwe's notoriously anti-gay Robert Mugabe.

After Chan's visit to Moscow in 2009, it was reported that Russian vaccine makers started making swine flu shots.