- published: 19 May 2015
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Margaret Chan Fung Fu-chun, OBE, JP (born 1947 in Hong Kong) is the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO). Chan was elected by the Executive Board of WHO on 8 November 2006, and was endorsed in a special meeting of the World Health Assembly on the following day. Chan has previously served as Director of Health in the Hong Kong Government (1994-2003), representative of the WHO Director-General for Pandemic Influenza and WHO Assistant Director-General for Communicable Diseases (2003-2006).
Margaret Chan was initially trained as a Home Economics teacher at the Northcote College of Education in Hong Kong. She then earned her B.A. degree in Home Economics and her M.D. degree at the University of Western Ontario in 1973 and 1977, respectively, as well as her MSc (Public Health) degree at the National University of Singapore in 1985. In 1997, she was given the distinction for the Fellowship of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine of the Royal College of Physicians of the United Kingdom and was also appointed as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II.