On 28 January 2003, Dr Jong-Wook Lee was nominated by the World Health Organisation’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.

Dr Lee has worked for WHO at country, regional and HQ level for 20 years in technical, managerial and policy positions, notably leading the fight against two of the greatest challenges to health and development: tuberculosis and vaccine preventable diseases in children.

Read an excerpt from Dr Jong-Wook Lee’s guest essay on climate change and health.