Doctor María Neira, current director of the Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health of the World Health Organization (WHO) until 2025, has announced this Thursday in Spain her candidacy for the organization’s Director-General position. With this initiative, she has reiterated her commitment to public health and to the need to “recover a strong scientific image” for the institution.
Neira has recalled that the organization “has been under heavy scrutiny” in recent years and that “this media exposure generates other areas of opinion.” In her view, the current context is “a very critical moment, with a lot of misinformation and fake news,” which entails “a danger of rolling back on public health issues.” For this reason, she has emphasized that “it is essential that the WHO work so as not to have any cracks.”
Along these lines, she has insisted that “the priority is that group of science and to have the best,” in addition to “working with civil society.” She has also advanced that “we will carry out a very important transformation in primary prevention,” placing the focus on “the causes of chronic diseases and, at the same time, there will be a satellite dish that is at the cutting edge of science, on the health risks that are going to come.”
(There will be an update)