A tribute to Dr LEE Jong-wook, Director-General of WHO
WHO/Jean-Marc Ferre
Dr LEE Jong-wook.
Dr LEE Jong-wook, Director-General of the World Health Organization, died on May 22, 2006 morning following a short illness.
Dr Lee, a national of the Republic of Korea, was a world leader in public health. He tackled every challenge with passion, dedication and professionalism. He was unfalteringly committed to WHO's mission, to help all people to attain "the highest possible level of health."
Throughout his 23-year career at WHO, he made a difference in every programme he managed - whether by leading the charge to eradicate polio from the Western Pacific, or to launch a cutting edge Global Drug Facility so people would have access to tuberculosis medicines.
The world has lost a great man today
-- Kofi Annan, UN Secretary-General
" The world has lost a great man today. LEE Jong-wook was a man of conviction and passion. He was a strong voice for the right of every man, woman and child to health prevention and care, and advocated on behalf of the very poorest people," said United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. "He tackled the most difficult problems head on, while upholding the highest principles. He will be very gravely missed, but history will mark LEE Jong-wook's many contributions to public health."
While personally a modest man, Dr LEE was a bold leader. When he became Director-General, he took a risk and announced that WHO would work with partners to achieve "3 by 5" - to ensure three million people with HIV/AIDS would have access to the medicines they needed by the end of 2005. "3 by 5" transformed the way leaders thought about AIDS medicines for people in poor countries. While the world fell short of the target, the successes and momentum of "3 by 5" demonstrated that universal access to medicines was possible - and had become a moral imperative.
A few days before his death, Dr Lee explained his vision of "universal access" to staff in his office as he worked on his speech to the World Health Assembly.
WHO
Dr Lee on one of his first country visits as Director-General, being warmly greeted by children outside the community health clinic in KwaMlanga, South Africa.
He said: " There can be no 'comfort level' in the fight against HIV. We must keep up the pressure to get prevention, treatment and care linked and working. A key outcome of "3 by 5" was the commitment to universal access to treatment by 2010. But what does universal access mean? To me, this means that no one should die because they can't get drugs. It means that no one will miss being tested, diagnosed, treated and cared for because there aren't clinics."
As Director-General, he led global efforts to tackle avian influenza and to prepare for a human influenza pandemic. Pointing to the health, social and economic devastation of historical influenza pandemics, he stressed repeatedly that every head of state should ensure their country developed a national pandemic preparation plan. He personally met with many heads of state, including US President George Bush, President Jacques Chirac, of France, and President Hu Jintao of China.
He listened very well. He talked to the top decision-makers, but sought out everyday people to ask about their lives, as he traveled the world. In his quiet way, he would find a farmer, or a market stall holder, a nurse, or a schoolchild and learn about them. Their personal stories with their photographs were often the anchor for his public statements on global health policy.
Underscoring the recognition of his role, Dr LEE was invited by President Vladimir Putin to speak at the G8 Summit this July in St. Petersburg, where the fight against infectious disease is one of three major items on the agenda.
WHO/Chris Black
In December 2005, Dr Lee travelled to the areas hit by the south Asia earthquake in Pakistan.
He took the fight against infectious diseases, and particularly the threat of pandemic influenza to a new level. He had a simple message: 'Prepare for a pandemic now, before it is too late." World leaders took it to heart and acted. Because of his conviction, the world is now better prepared for pandemic influenza than it has ever has been in history.
In his very first speech to WHO staff as Director-General, Dr Lee vowed that WHO would do the right things, in the right places. To him, the right places were the countries that most needed WHO's support. In his nearly three years as Director-General, Dr LEE traveled to more than 60 countries, to visit health programmes and the people they affected, and to meet with the most senior leaders. He swiftly traveled to places where his leadership was urgently needed - to immediately assess the health needs following the Indian Ocean tsunami, the south Asian earthquake and in the Darfur region of Sudan, for example.
He considered WHO's job as one of huge responsibility to its 192 Member States, and the health needs of their people. He reformed WHO to help ensure it could meet those needs more effectively, with a strong focus on recruiting and retaining people with the right skills. He insisted on a rigorous financial strategy which reduced spending at Headquarters, and gave more to the countries where funding is most needed. This required tough decisions, but he did not hesitate to make them.
WHO/Chris Black
Dr Lee worked for 23 years at WHO, and was the first person from the Republic of Korea to lead a UN agency.
He preferred to lead by example, rather than instruction. He led a healthy life, and embraced life in Switzerland to its fullest. He loved skiing, mountain biking, and walking. He would pause at the office window and invite others to stand with him, reflecting on the beauty of the lakes, mountains and hills around him. During lunch hours at WHO, he would often take walks through the gardens, or a bike ride along the paths. He took great pleasure in sharing good food and wine. He also set an example across the United Nations, with strict rules against tobacco use, and the conversion of the fleet of WHO cars to small, environmentally-friendly fuel/electric vehicles.
Dr Lee had very wide-ranging intellectual interests, with a great appetite for knowledge and a hugely retentive memory. He often surprised people with his precise recall of a book or play that he was reading, or had read many years ago, and its application to a current situation. In spare moments he enjoyed classical music, the theatre, reading Shakespeare and other great literature. His mother tongue was Korean but spoke fluent English. He also spoke French and Japanese.
He will be very fondly remembered for his self-deprecating wit. He often used his quirky, unexpected humour either to put people at ease, to diffuse a difficult situation, or just to make his friends laugh with his astute observations.
Dr Lee was the first UN agency head from the Republic of Korea. He began his five-year term as Director-General of WHO on 21 July, 2003.
He was 61 years old. He is survived by his wife and son, two brothers and one sister and their families.
Selected photographs
[break=Dr LEE Jong-wook: Biography]
Dr LEE Jong-wook: Biography
LEE Jong-wook was nominated on 28 January 2003 by the World Health Organization's Executive Board for the post of Director-General of the agency and elected to the post on 21 May by the Member States of WHO for a five-year term.
Prior to his work as Director-General, Dr Lee was a world leader in the fight against two of the greatest challenges to international health and development - tuberculosis, and vaccine preventable diseases of children. Since the appointment as Director of the Stop TB Department in WHO in 2000 – and building on previous experience as head of the Global Programme on Vaccines and Immunization – Dr Lee rapidly built what is internationally recognized as one of the most successful and dynamic global public-private partnerships for health; the Global Partnership to Stop TB. Credited by the Boston Globe as having brought the leadership and political skills needed to build consensus and ‘spur former antagonists to work together’, Dr Lee led the growth of a remarkable and complex coalition of more than 250 international partners that includes WHO Members States, donors, NGOs, industry and foundations.
Dr Lee’s work in tuberculosis control and vaccines demonstrated his personal strategic focus on health interventions to reduce poverty. In accelerating movement to reach the global immunization goals – including polio eradication – and hastening progress towards the global TB control targets, he led efforts which will make a substantial contribution to reaching the Millennium Development Goals. Shortly after his appointment to Stop TB, he launched the Global Drug Facility (GDF) - a new initiative to increase access to TB drugs, with substantial financial support from several multilateral agencies, governments and foundations, the GDF has already made a significant impact and is increasingly being viewed as a model for increasing access to drugs for other diseases of poverty, such as HIV/AIDS and malaria.
His commitment to action and focus on countries ensured that what counts is results – a feature that has been clearly evident from early in his career. As head of polio eradication initiatives in the Western Pacific from 1990 to 1994, he oversaw a reduction in reported polio cases from 5963 to 700 in the Region. In 1994, Dr Lee moved to WHO headquarters in Geneva as Director of the WHO Global Programme for Vaccines and Immunization (GPV) and Executive Secretary of the Children’s Vaccine Initiative – a global campaign to catalyze development of new and improved vaccines for children. He quickly established a reputation as a visionary leader and strong manager. Dubbed as WHO’s ‘Vaccine Czar’ by the Scientific American magazine in 1997, he was responsible for a series of strategic developments in GPV. These included an open approach to working with industry, a review of the short-, mid- and long-term mission of GPV, an increase in funding from $15 million to nearly $70 million between 1994 and 1998, and management reforms to assure the highest technical competence of staff and increase the proportion of women in professional posts.
In 1998, having joined the newly formed cabinet as Senior Policy Adviser to the Director-General of WHO, he was closely involved in the WHO reform process, and maintained a strong commitment to supporting Members States by strengthening the regional and country structure of the Organization. As Special Representative of the Director-General, he was responsible for several crucial WHO initiatives, including those in the Horn of Africa and East Timor.
Dr Lee probably knew WHO better than most, having worked for more than 20 years in technical, managerial and policy positions at all levels in the Organization – country, region and headquarters. He began his WHO career in 1983 as a leprosy consultant in the South Pacific, and a year later was appointed team leader for leprosy control in the South Pacific. In 1986 he moved to the Western Pacific Regional Office in Manila, initially in the Regional Leprosy Control Programme and later as Regional Adviser on Chronic Diseases.
Since Dr Lee took office as Director-General, the Organization has achieved some notable milestones in public health; ratifying the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (the first public health treaty negotiated by WHO); adopting a revised set of International Health Regulations; and leading the health response to avian influenza, the Asian tsunami, and the Pakistan earthquake.
The Director-General released several landmark publications with the aim of prompting a substantial response to some of the greatest health challenges facing the world, most notably the annual World Health Reports, which have focused on the AIDS treatment gap (2004); the appalling burden of suffering and death faced by pregnant women and children, with a call to 'make every mother and child count' (2005); and a commitment to address the health workforce crisis facing most developing countries (2006). The Report for 2007 takes the theme of health and security, emphasizing the central relationship between health, peace and human security.
Prior to joining WHO, Dr Lee worked for two years at the LBJ Tropical Medical Centre in American Samoa. A national of the Republic of Korea, he received his Medical Doctor (MD) degree from Seoul National University Medical School of Medicine, and a Master of Public Health degree from the University of Hawaii, School of Public Health.
Dr Lee was born in 1945. He is survived by his wife and son, two brothers and a sister and their families.
[break=Selected Photographs]
WHO/Jean-Marc Ferre
Dr LEE Jong-wook.
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Official photograph of Dr LEE Jong-wook 
WHO
WHO
Dr Lee on one of his first country visits as Director-General, outside the community health clinic in KwaMlanga, South Africa. He was warmly greeted by children, and by a dance troupe.
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WHO/Chris Black
WHO/Chris Black
In December 2005, Dr Lee travelled to the areas hit by the south Asia earthquake in Pakistan, to assess the health needs of the tens of thousands of people who had to spend the winter in camps.
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WHO/Pierre Virot
Dr Lee had a tremendous sense of the history of WHO. He was very proud to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Alma Ata "Health for All" declaration, with his predecessors, including Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, Dr Halfdan Mahler and Dr Hiroshi Nakajima.
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WHO/Christine McNab
Dr Lee with Johnson Mwakazi, a youth activist he met in Nairobi, Kenya in March this year. After hearing Johnson's poem about stigma and HIV/AIDS, Dr Lee immediately invited him to speak at the May 2006 World Health Assembly.
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WHO/Chris Black
Dr Lee recently met with Dr Philippe Douste-Blazy, France's Minister of Foreign Affairs, and pledged WHO's support to the International Drug Purchase Facility.
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WHO/Chris Black
Dr Lee worked for 23 years at the World Health Organization, and was the first person from the Republic of Korea to lead a United Nations agency.
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Courtesy:
Selected photographs from
World Health Organization
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